


Floorshow

by neaf



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-10
Updated: 2013-04-09
Packaged: 2017-12-08 01:20:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 45,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/755321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neaf/pseuds/neaf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rocky Horror Audience Participation AU, Blaine is a law student, forced into a strict life by his father, but he misses performing. A chance meeting spurs his old desires, and he finds himself joining the cast of the local RHPS AP, where he meets the enigmatic Frank, and starts to remember who he used to be. But Frank is much, much more than he seems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Complete AU set a few years down the track - Kurt never went to Dalton, he and Blaine never met.
> 
> If you haven't seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show, it won't make as much sense. You don't need to have been to an Audience Participation session to get a lot of the references, they're from the movie and the rest is mostly explained.
> 
> Kurt's hair and makeup as Frank is based on Tony Head's stage performance as Frank, not the movie.

Blaine Anderson was many things. 

He was a law student, an athlete. He was a scholar, an accomplished musician, and above all, a gentleman. Blaine Anderson was going places. He was sensible, and levelheaded, and in control. Blaine Anderson was not impulsive.

At least, he hadn’t been impulsive in a very, very long time.

Which is why, when met with the giant arched doorway of the heritage Kismet Theatre, staring at streams of costumed audience members filing slowly inside, all Blaine could do was squeeze the watch in his pocket over and over and repeat to himself: _I don’t do this. I never do this. This isn’t me, not anymore._

A small voice in the back of his head chose that moment to inform him that was precisely why he _had_ to do this. He thumbed over the pocket watch, the watch he never opened anymore, and remembered the piece of paper tucked inside it, dented with scrawled handwriting.

_Sometimes we forget who we really are._

He made his way inside, wide eyes flashing as he took in the spectacle of the masses gathered for the show; so much glitter and lace, stockings and leather jackets blending under the heady machine-made smoke that hovered in the air like a light fog.

The smell hit him all at once. The concession stand, the undertone of make-up and hairspray. Performance was his life, once. A long time ago. 

But that was before real life, before law school, and that long night in his parents’ front room, so pristine and untouched it looked and smelled like a catalogue page. The sound of his father’s voice, low and booming loud enough to rattle his bones: _enough with this nonsense, these silly singing competitions. It’s time to grow up._

A sharp hand on his arm jerked him out of his reverie. “Blaine?”

His brow shot up in surprise at the tiny woman in front of him, decked out in a purple corset and a shredded black skirt. Her hair was long, but mostly synthetic, with shades of lavender and deep indigo fabric hanging in streamers from a gathered mess of curls.

“Y-Yes, that’s me!” he shouted back at her, only realising a moment too late the sheer volume of his voice. A few crowd members turned to look at him, and he ducked his head, embarrassed.

But the girl hadn’t noticed. “Great! We spoke on the phone, I’m Kim,” she tugged on his arm, “come with me, kiddo, we’ve only got ten minutes.”

They darted and wove through the onslaught of bodies pressing in every direction, and before he could adjust to each new corridor and room he was being dragged through a heavy sprung door to the side stage. 

He stopped dead in his tracks at the sight, and wondered if his gasp was as loud as it felt. A tray of neatly arranged programs sat on the table in front of a dozen or more people, half-naked and chattering loudly as they tugged themselves into costumes. The blood red of the words against a black background burned into his brain in an instant, and suddenly the haze of the night gave way to reality. 

_The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Audience Participation. Kismet Theatre._

He was here. He was actually doing this.

_Oh god._

“And who do we have here?” A tall woman slid up to them smoothly, her hair a bush of teased curls underneath a tiny white hat. His eyes flicked over her costume once. _Magenta._

Kim pushed him forward with a gentle shove. “This is our new Brad.”

Tilting her weight back onto a spiked stiletto heel, Magenta regarded him for a moment. “Hello, captain dapper and curls. Well, I like this one better than Steve.”

“Steve?” Blaine asked nervously.

“Our last Brad,” Kim mumbled behind him, scanning over the tray. “Anybody’s better than Steve.”

“What – what was wrong with Steve?” Blaine managed to stammer out, trying to keep himself from wiping his sweaty palms on his trousers.

“He gave Columbia chlamydia,” she shot back.

After a moment of surprise, Blaine let out awkward laugh. “Try saying that ten times fast.”

Magenta quirked her eyebrow, and the edge of her mouth curled into a wicked smile. “Oh, I like him. Virgin,” she gestured as if to add a silent _of course_ , “but he’ll do.”

“W-wait, I’m not–”

“To the show, sweetie,” Kim corrected his assumption with a pat to the shoulder. “This is your first time at A-P?”

A-P? _Audience Participation_ , he realised. “Yes.” 

The two girls exchanged a quick glance. This was not going as well as he’d hoped. 

Before he could stop himself, high-strung and shaky with nerves, he gestured to a girl dressed as Columbia rehearsing her dance over by the stage curtain. “Does that happen… often?”

“The STI? No. The sex, yes.” Magenta looped his arm as she spoke, patting down his sleeve seductively. “You’ll get used to it.”

“I’m … I mean, I’m–”

“Gay as the day is long?” she finished for him. “Duh. Half the cast is. Everybody sleeps with everybody.” She winked, relinquishing his arm. Blaine was suddenly aware he’d been holding his breath. 

“Well, except Frank,” she said with a shrug. “You’ll see. I have a feeling you’re gonna love it here. Get that kink out your skirt, if you know what I mean.”

Blaine blinked, dumbfounded, but didn’t get the chance to point out that he actually had no clue what she meant before she was sauntering away, swinging her hips and smirking back over her shoulder at him. 

_Well that was… strange._

He almost jumped when Kim came up behind him, her voice startlingly close. “Watch the show, keep an eye on the stage. Transylvanians – that’s the cast you’ll see in cos at the side of the stage – they do the callbacks, along with the regulars in the audience. Main cast, that’s you, just act out the film down below the big screen.” She was explaining quickly, adjusting her hair and costume as she spoke, and Blaine did his best to concentrate on her voice.

“Be prepared to get wet, be ready to have things thrown at you. We’ve got a fill-in Brad tonight, but next Friday it’s you, so tonight you watch and get an idea of how we run. Buy the movie if you don’t already own it. Learn the lines, figure out your cues. First night is always rough, but you’ll learn.”

“Right,” Blaine acknowledged shakily, his gaze flicking around backstage. He watched the unfamiliar faces as they chattered and sang to each other and to themselves. The bodies stretching in corsets and glitter and garters all moved around each other smoothly, like some kind of underworld machine, wrapped in leather and lace. “Thank you, Kim, for this – for everything, I won’t let you down.”

“Trixie,” she said, tossing her clipboard onto a table. “Friday nights, I’m Trixie. Get used to people calling you Brad,” she went on as she adjusted her corset fiercely, manually tucking each breast in tighter so her cleavage was more visible. “And un-bunch your panties, kiddo. You’re here to have fun. It’s burlesque, not Broadway.”

Blaine blushed violently, dipping his head down and finding a convenient spot on the floor to stare at.

When she noticed his expression and the pink tinge of his ears, she gave him a soft smile. “We’ll knock that out of you soon enough. And if we don’t, Frank certainly will.”

He peered up from under long eyelashes. “Frank?”

“Oh, honey,” she scoffed fondly, patting him on the arm. “You’ll see.”

With a nervous smile, he watched her collect the flat tray full of grab bags and programs, looping the strap around her neck and shuffling past the curtain. The murmur of the crowd grew steadily louder and louder, and it was doing little to calm his nerves. Out of nowhere, a shout went up, and a chorus of voices began to enthusiastically chant unfamiliar words.

“And god said, let there be lips! And there were. And they gave good head!”

Eyes wide, he shuffled to the edge of the curtain and pushed it back just far enough to spy the crowd as the song began. _Science Fiction, Double Feature_ , and in a rush of singing voices and spotlights, his adolescence came back to life. It wasn’t Pink or Katy Perry, but the electricity in the air was the same, and the faces of the crowd. 

_It was so long ago._

Transfixed by the song and the performance, he swayed against the wall, face framed by the velvet of the curtain fabric. Something in his chest hurt, something old and long dormant, and he wondered for the first time in a long time what it felt like to be out there.

“Well, apparently you _do_ just fine,” a light, teasing voice came from behind him – soft enough that Blaine wondered at first if he’d imagined it.

He turned and stumbled, his back pressed lightly to the wall as he faced the figure now seated on top of the table.

It took him a moment to realize the man’s gaze had been locked on his ass. “I – I’m sorry?”

“ _How do you do_?” the man purred. “It’s my first line. Never mind. It’s Blaine, isn’t it? So you’re our new Brad?”

Blaine stared, open mouthed, unable to find a reply.

The corset he’d expected, but the body it clung to was tight, and wiry, and built of porcelain skin and muscle that looked like it was cut from marble. The bulge of both shoulders and biceps cutting out from under the black lines of shimmering fabric was impossible not to follow down to gloved forearms and long, thin fingers pressed against pale knees. His calves disappeared into leather boots with four-inch heels at the base, and Blaine realized a moment too late he was actually staring at the shifting muscle along the man’s thighs.

“I – uh…” Blaine swallowed, eyes fluttering closed for a moment as he tried to regain his bearings. “Yes. Blaine. Brad. I’m the new Brad.”

“I figured,” he said, amused.

Blaine caught his eyes, and took in the lines of makeup across his face flicking out from each eyebrow, the high draw of his cheekbones and the spikes of his dark hair, right down to the scarlet lipstick painted on his lightly smirking mouth. This had to be Frank.

“Frank – is it?” Blaine asked, but the waver in his voice betrayed him.

Frank eyed him curiously, seeming almost surprised. “When I’m here, yes.”

“And when you’re out there?” Blaine’s eyes flicked to the lit up exit sign, and internally he registered that he had no control over his mouth right now, or, considering the uncomfortable feeling developing in his boxers, his body.

“Out there?” Frank shrugged lightly, and twirled a sucker in the air with his absurdly long fingers. “Wouldn’t _you_ like to know.” 

He slipped the lollipop past red lips and shifted smoothly on the table, spreading both legs almost to right angles as he perched forward, elbows balanced on his knees.

Blaine did his best not to whimper at the long stretch of skin now on display. _Oh sweet jesus._

His glance slipped helplessly down to the black satin and lace briefs Frank was wearing. He gulped, and realised immediately that the noise he’d made sounded like something out of a cartoon. Fitting, he supposed, given the situation. He was fairly sure this was exactly how Wile E Coyote felt whenever he realised he’d run out of cliff to stand on. _If only I had a little sign._

“You don’t do this much, do you?” Frank asked. His voice was lighter this time, and curious.

Blaine glanced up at that, blushing deep red at being caught staring. And what the hell was he doing here? Why was he here? He heard his father’s voice again, and his his body tensed, eyes slamming shut. “I’m sorry, I … I don’t do this, I shouldn’t be here.”

“I don’t know about that,” Frank said quickly, his voice strong and confident as he twirled his lollipop between two fingers.

It was the last thing Blaine expected to hear, and his eyes opened again. “I’m sorry?”

“You don’t normally do this. But you want to do this,” he said.

It was a statement, not a question, but Blaine answered anyway. “Yes.”

“In that case,” Frank went on, letting his eyes trail up and down Blaine’s body. “This is exactly where you should be.”

“I guess,” Blaine uttered, gaze searching the ground.

Frank’s fingers slipped lightly over the inside of his own thigh, and Blaine looked up at the movement, watching them press pale lines into skin. His breath caught in his throat.

“I –I’m not used to this kind of… I don’t perform. Not anymore,” he babbled, gesturing to the curtain and the roar of voices beyond. “I used to.”

“You want to,” Frank said silkily, his voice calm. 

“But I don’t belong here. Anymore.”

“Give it some time.” Frank smiled at him, sliding a pink tongue over the globe of his lollipop and taking it back into his mouth. He sucked on it briefly, hollowing both cheeks before he pulled it back out with an obscenely loud pop. “I have a feeling you’ll fit right in.” 

Blaine swallowed hard, unable to tear his eyes away.

Slipping off the table, Frank closed the gap between them with two easy strides, pinning Blaine to the wall. He rocked back, his hips stuttering against the plaster as Frank slid their bodies together and locked their mouths, swallowing down Blaine’s moan as he ground his hips across the bulge of Blaine’s now achingly hard cock.

Blaine’s head swam, his heart pounding in his ears as Frank licked and explored inside his mouth, tasting him and gliding over his tongue and teeth. He rolled their mouths together fiercely, the fingers of his free hand sliding into Blaine’s curls and tugging lightly as he pushed Blaine harder into the wall and sucked on his tongue. Everything tasted like sugar and cherries, everything smelled like powder and hair gel and something powerful underneath, drawing him in like a flame.

Frank lingered for a moment, grunting against Blaine’s mouth and sucking back on his lower lip before he let him go. Blaine panted as soon as he was free, realising both his hands were clinging tightly to narrow hips, fingers tucked into lace and sliding over the curves of smooth skin. _What just happened?_

Frank smiled at him, and kohl-rimmed eyes that Blaine had assumed were just blue were suddenly galaxies of colour, shining with mischief in the yellow light. Blaine struggled to breathe under that stare, his own pupils blown wide and dark as Frank pulled himself back, and Blaine was forced to extract both hands from his pants.

“Wh- what was that for?” Blaine managed at last, his voice barely above a whisper. In the distance, he registered the melody of the _Time Warp_.

“Luck,” Frank whispered back breathlessly, his gaze slipping down to the kiss-swollen line of Blaine’s lips. He smirked, and licked at them one more time, sealing over his tongue in a gentle kiss for barely a second before Blaine felt something solid push into his mouth. _Cherries?_ He closed his mouth around the lollipop. _Oh._

“ _Enchente_ ,” Frank purred, thumbing one last time over Blaine’s lips before he swept through the curtain, and disappeared.

The thumping bass of the music broke past the whistling in Blaine’s ears as his heart slowed at last, and over the sound he caught Frank’s voice in tune with the movie. 

_“How do you do?”_

Blaine couldn’t help the broad smile that pulled at his mouth around the stem of the sucker as it clacked against his teeth. _Well, apparently I do just fine._


	2. Chapter 2

Finding a copy of the movie was the easy part, and Blaine had rushed home all too quickly, pushing it into his DVD player with a strange and child-like excitement. Every time he stopped himself and wondered what on earth he was doing, that’s when the taste and sensation flooded back, crisp and clear as sugar cherry on his tongue.

He tried not to overanalyse the meaning behind the small bag of suckers he’d bought on the way out of the convenience store.

The vast majority of his weekend was spent curled on the couch watching the movie play over and over, saying aloud the lines he could remember and gesticulating absently along to the dialogue. By Sunday night, he was on his feet in the middle of his living room, acting out scenes and stop-starting the DVD to practice.

There was so much to re-learn; the way his body moved, the way his voice wound itself around the songs, blending with the baritone of Barry Bostwick. It was new, but at the same time, it was so old and so familiar, and the more engrossed he became the faster the hours slipped by into the black of the starless city night.

When he finally thought to look at the clock it was past 2am, and he skidded to a halt in the middle of yet another run through of _Dammit Janet_. He had work in seven hours. _Oh, crap._

With an exaggerated sigh he found his remote, turning off the DVD and watching the screen go dark before he slumped to his bathroom to brush his teeth. His mind wandered over the surreal speed of his missing weekend, all just flashes of sound and sequins and the taste of too many cherry lollipops. His eyes unfocused as each thread of thought traced itself back to that one moment on Friday night, when he was pressed bodily into the wall of the Kismet Theatre and taken for all he had.

His breath came out shakily, ghosting over the mirror under the shudder that rippled from his toes to his ears. It had been too long since a man had touched him like that. Kissed him like that. No, he reminded himself. He’d never been kissed like _that._

The muscles in his thighs flexed at the replaying memory; that feeling of smooth skin under his fingers, caught up in lace, and the firm curve of that ass filling his palms. His dick twitched, and he hissed softly, pushing himself away from the counter.

It was nothing. It was a brief moment of over-sharing, of unnecessary openness with a complete stranger in the side-stage of a theatre, it was just a thing, this _thing_ that had happened to him (no, things never happen to him, nothing ever happens to him, he tells himself, and then in another burst of thought, _but this did, this was real, don’t push this away_ ) and he needs to forget about it.

He had to go to work in six and a half hours, to be respectable, be an _Anderson_. He had to be that unpaid intern that brought the suits their coffee, hoping for some scraps of experience before his next lecture.

Today was Monday, he remembered, now curled up in bed under tangled sheets and staring at the clock. That’s all that mattered; today was Monday, which meant coffee at _Café Destin_ , which only ever meant one thing. He'd get to see him, today.

Kurt Hummel.

Letting out a soft, peaceful sigh, Blaine closed his eyes, sliding his hands under the sheets.

Kurt Hummel was the one thing that made his week worth waking up to. Monday mornings at the tiny French coffee shop on the corner, there he was like clockwork. 

They both worked in the same building; the law firm was in the same high-rise as the magazine publications office that Kurt seemed to be a part of, but Blaine never got to see him properly there. Sometimes in the hall or the lobby, and the single most memorable time – the greatest twenty-four second elevator ride of his life – but otherwise? No, it was _Café Destin_ , 8:27am, Monday mornings. That was all he got.

It was enough.

He let out another slow, smooth gust of breath, his hands grazing gently over the soft skin of his own belly, tracing the lines of his bare hipbones as he let his mind wander.

His father had organised the internship with Harper & Veil, of course. He hated every moment trapped in that insipid maroon office, making coffee and photocopying endless stacks of documents for hours on end, sore from standing still too long. There was no music; there was barely any sound at all above the hum of the office machines. He wondered almost daily how he’d managed to stay sane after all this time.

And then he’d remember: Kurt Hummel was how.

 _You have to start somewhere,_ his father had said when he’d told Blaine to take the internship. _Everybody starts on the bottom rung. Work hard and be reliable, be a foundation, boy. If you don’t screw it up, you might make partner someday._

Partner. 

Blaine didn’t care about any kind of partner that came hand in hand with silence, condescension, a mahogany desk and the smell of overpriced cologne.

He’d been there a week, going slowly out of his mind, when he first saw Kurt. It was two seconds in the lobby, a long look across the grey marble floors and the hint of a smile on that perfectly shaped pink mouth. He was captured in the sunlight filtering through the glass doors, outlined like a star. He was the most beautiful thing Blaine had ever seen. 

And he didn’t know his name.

It was always stolen glances in passing in the halls, but Kurt was never looking back when Blaine saw him. Once or twice Blaine got off on the wrong floor, just to see if it was the right one.

Sometimes he remembered the look on Kurt’s face that first time he saw him, and he forgot, for a moment, how to breathe.

Then one day, the greatest thing that could ever happen to him happened: the ground floor coffee cart was evicted from their haughty, pristine marble lobby, sending Blaine down the street to the little café for his morning caffeine fix one random Monday.

And there he was.

It’d become a ritual, now. Blaine would get there at twenty past eight each Monday, catching the earlier bus to make sure he wasn’t late. He’d find a seat in the back, always the same one, and take his medium drip to drink alone. Kurt showed up seven minutes later, sweeping in the door every time in another flawless ensemble, usually topped off with a scarf. He’d order his drink and take the table by the window, folding his legs gracefully staring out at the passers-by. 

Blaine memorised the back of his head, the lines of his shoulders under his coat, the beautiful curve of his neck and the sweep of his light brown hair. Sometimes a woman would come and sit with him, and Blaine would feel that twinge in his chest flare up again. Girlfriend? Sister? He didn’t know, but he didn’t mind her, after awhile. She made Kurt laugh, and the Mondays when he got to see Kurt laugh made his entire week.

He smiled sadly to himself in the dark of his room, fingers ghosting over his own thighs, as he tried to remember the musical sound of that laugh. He'd barely caught it over the chatter of the other patrons, but it was there, riding on the air. Just a second of sound.

He’d found out Kurt’s name by accident, that one day in the elevator. That one day he’d finally had enough of law school, his father and his bosses and that miserable silence, and he was ready to pull the emergency stop and just crumble to the floor. But the lift stopped before he could so much as move his hand, and in strode Kurt, spinning on his heel, papers in hand and perfect dark-rimmed Chanel glasses perched on his elegant nose. 

All the pain, everything that felt like too much in his life, all of it vanished in that moment, disappearing over some invisible event horizon.

Blaine held his breath for all twenty-four seconds, and forced himself not to stare. He flicked glances at the papers carefully, at the leather cuff on Kurt’s tapered wrist and the stunning powder blue of his Prada shirt. There it was, printed in bock letters on a card clipped to the stack of papers. _Kurt Hummel, PA._ Underneath it, on a piece of scrap paper, was a sentence in elegant handwriting, scribbled like an afterthought. Reading it felt like a hammer had been taken to Blaine's heart. 

_Sometimes we forget who we really are._

Blinking back tears, Blaine opened his mouth to speak, and closed it again. His throat stung with the need to get out the sound of his name. He was right there, Kurt was standing right beside him, he could just say something. Say his name. _Say anything._

But he couldn’t find his voice.

Without so much as a glance, Kurt was gone. Out the heavy gray doors, and out of his life again.

But he was right there, once, and maybe some day it would happen again. Blaine just needed to find his voice.

He rolled over in bed, glancing at the clock and trying to kick off his sheets, now clinging to sweat-damp skin. It was past 5am.

Resigned to his insomnia, he let his gaze trail over his darkened room, lingering on the shadow of his pinup board and the flier still stuck to it. Rocky Horror. He’d taken it from the café one morning, the casting call for Brad. He needed to find his voice, and this is how he was going to do it. He was a performer, once. He’d stood in front of crowds, he’d won championships for his singing; he could talk to Kurt Hummel.

He ignored the sound of his father’s voice, burrowing through the back of his mind again ( _Blaine, this is absurd. When are you going to grow up and be a real man?_ ), focusing instead on the memory of the taste of sugar cherry lollipops, and the feeling of lace under his fingers. 

Frank was something new, something easy to fantasise about, miles away from the droning monotone of reality. Frank was his escape, his window into that world, and just as surely as Frank had used him for kicks before he’d walked out onto that stage, he could use Frank now. 

He pushed his palm under the band of his pyjamas to stroke lazily at himself while his mind flashed over mirrors of sensation and absent ideas, the phantom sense of how Frank’s sweat would taste, the way he would guide his hands over that body, satin and lace between his teeth and on his tongue. He whimpered softly, squeezing himself a little too tight and rolling his hips into the feeling. 

By the time he came, crying out and slumping back onto the bed, it was ten to six in the morning.

With a groan he rolled over, dragging himself limply to the bedside to clean up, and shivering as his bare skin slid across the cool sheets on the unused side of his mattress. He froze for a moment, hand groping in the dark for some tissues or wipes, and tried not to think about the ache in that rose up in his throat whenever he was reminded of the pillow by his elbow that had never been touched.

Why he thought of Kurt at that moment, he didn’t know, but it only made the ache worse. He wiped himself down absently, eyes staring at nothing in particular through the murky morning dark.

He tried to train his mind back to that Friday, to the side-stage and the kiss, but every time he came back around to the lobby, the sunlight streaming in through the doors and that tiny smile on Kurt’s face.

Sighing heavily, he fell back onto the bed with an exhausted groan.

It had been six months. Six months and not even a word shared between them, and even with his perfectly pre-designed career path and random stolen kisses from strangers, he knew somehow he would never escape that feeling. For some stupid reason, Kurt Hummel was the only person he wanted to wake up to.

His alarm blared, and he huffed out a humourless laugh.

At least it was Monday, and that only meant one thing. He could see him today. Even if only from a distance.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for bullying and sexual harassment at the end, but not much.

By Friday night, Blaine couldn’t remember how many times he’d watched the movie, or how many lollipops he’d gone through. He couldn’t recall how many times he'd picked up the phone to call Kim, to tell her no, this was all just a huge mistake. He couldn’t do this.

The first few times he'd put down the phone out of sheer panic. How many more people could he disappoint?

The last time, his watch had tumbled out of his pocket with his cell, thumping mutedly on the carpet as it landed. He’d stopped dead, staring at it for a long moment before he pushed his cell back into his pants pocket. He could do this. No, he _had_ to do this. 

That day so long ago, the day he'd walked, shaky and stunned, out of the lift he shared with Kurt, he’d made his way straight to the copy room and found a pen, scrawling down the note he’d seen in Kurt’s hands. _Sometimes we forget who we really are._ He tore it off, folding it carefully and pressing it inside the pocket watch to remind himself, to _keep_ reminding himself, that he’d forgotten who he used to be.

The week had gone by in an instant, and at the same time took far too long. Come Friday night, he was finally there, waiting in the side-stage makeshift dressing room with the other cast members as they moved through their oft-practiced ritual of sliding and shimmying into costumes. The pressed white shirt hanging over his shoulders was unbuttoned at the front, and his pants were far too loose (to get them off quickly, he was told). He mentally kicked himself over and over for belatedly realising he was going to be on a stage in front of hundreds of people in his underwear.

 _Smart, Blaine,_ he scolded himself. _You’re a fucking genius._

He glanced down at his clothes awkwardly, peering through lens-less costume glasses and fumbling as he tried to do up one button after another with trembling hands.

“Come on now, sweetcheeks.” A girl dressed as Janet jogged up to him with a kind smile. “No need to be shy, you’re gonna be out there in your undies soon enough.”

A laugh escaped him, shaky and punching out in a tiny rhythm. “I guess, you’re right.”

“Aw, you’re nervous? Don’t worry, first night everybody fucks up a bunch of times, you’ll be fine. Laugh it off, keep going, you’re here to have fun. I promise I won’t bite, but I can’t promise to keep my hands off your ass, goddamn boy,” she insisted, leaning back to get a better view. “That is… wow. I hope you’re a bottom or that thing is going to _waste_!”

He almost choked on his own spit, staring at her in wide-eyed shock. “Excuse me?”

“Someone should have warned you about Janet here,” Magenta added with a smirk as she came to Blaine’s side. “She has no filter.”

“Filterless,” Janet agreed. “Filter free. De-filtered. Now with a hundred percent less filter.”

“See?”

“Shut up, Madge,” Janet added with an amused glare.

“So Mr. Majors,” Magenta began, sliding her arm over Blaine’s shoulders. “Excited for your premiere performance?”

Right on cue, Blaine lost his footing and stumbled neatly into the wall. 

“Ah, the pre-show wall bumping ritual,” she intoned with mock seriousness, folding both arms over her ample chest. “I know it well. Don’t worry, happens to the best of us. Met Frank yet?”

“I… uh… well,” Blaine stammered, blinking behind his frames as he tried to push the flashing images of garter straps and red lipstick from his mind. “That is, I’ve – yes.”

Magenta grinned, and Blaine realised that watching her was basically like looking at a shark in a maid’s uniform. 

“Don’t worry sugar, he has that effect on everyone.”

“And she means _everyone_ ,” Janet added, fanning herself dramatically. “Okay sweetness, we’re up in ten, I’ll let you finish getting dressed. So you can get out there and we can kiss you, strip you, grope you, lie on top of you and serenade you, all in the name of entertainment.”

“ _God_ , I love my job,” Madge enthused, nodding for emphasis before she and Janet slinked away, arm in arm.

Blaine watched them go, still lost for words, before he caught sight of Kim – Trixie, he reminded himself – across the room. She was chatting with a tall blond man in gold boyshorts, and gesticulating wildly above her head. Whatever she was talking about, she wasn’t happy. 

Something in his gut churned anxiously, but the feeling of cool, soft fingers slipping into the back of his belt jolted him out of his thoughts.

“Don’t worry about Rocky,” Frank said, hot breath gusting over Blaine’s ear. “He’s just a little hands-on with some of the cast. Needs to be put in line sometimes.”

Blaine gulped, and wondered if it was panic rising in his throat or just nerves as practiced fingers trailed lightly up and down his spine under his shirt.

“Shh, hey,” Frank whispered after Blaine’s frame tensed under his hand. “You’ll be fine. After you get through tonight, it'll get a lot easier.”

Letting out a long, ragged breath, Blaine closed his eyes and fought the instinct to rock back into the body behind him. Frank’s fingers were working against his muscles now, firm and slow, calming him down. He hummed softly, lost to the soothing sensation flooding his skin.

With a rare, warm smile, Frank dipped his head and pressed against Blaine’s temple. It was a strange gesture, immediately intimate in a way Blaine was unfamiliar with. He realised Frank was all but wrapped around his body, somehow covering him while barely touching him. The tease of heat pouring over him sent a sharp warning straight to Blaines cock, and he was suddenly aware that he was already half-hard. He bit down on his lip to trap a whimper in his throat as fingers ghosted lightly over his hips.

At the shiver that rippled through him, the fingers stopped for a moment before gripping his sides firmly and tugging him backwards. His back met with Frank's chest as they slipped into a crevice behind the curtain, out of sight.

“Wh-what are you – what –wh-”

“Shh, you big baby, come here,” Frank scolded, pulling Blaine in tight against him again and sliding both hands over his stomach. “You need to relax.”

“It’s a bit hard to relax when I’m being pulled around,” Blaine hissed back, trying to turn and look at the man behind him. His mouth came up under Frank’s chin, and as his lips grazed over the pale column of his neck, he felt time stop. The smell was stronger now, that heady cologne scent that lingered under their last kiss. Blaine felt dizzy and hyper-aware all at once.

Frank’s hands slipped down Blaine’s stomach, flat palms dragging over exposed skin and into his pants.

Blaine’s voice went up an octave. “O-oh, my god, what are you d-?”

“Helping you relax,” Frank insisted, lips pressed into Blaine’s hair as he whispered against him. “Now shut up, or we’ll get caught.”

“I – I don’t do this, I never,” Blaine’s voice cut off with a groan as Frank’s fingers found their way into his briefs. “Oh god, _yes_. Please.”

Wearing a knowing smile, Frank stroked him gently, gliding his coiled fist up the length Blaine’s cock and swirling his thumb over the head in one smooth movement. The pressure and the slide shot sparks of lightning into Blaine’s veins. Frank’s other hand had moved up his body, now bracing his chest and holding him in tight, almost like he was cradling him. Blaine's body melted into the embrace; perfect, and warm, and everything he’d forgotten he needed like oxygen. 

It struck him like a gunshot, the awareness that this was real, and he was in a man’s arms for the first time in a long time. He wondered absently through gasps of air if this is what heaven tasted like; sugar cherry, and _him_.

Trying to keep in the sounds that threatened to spill out of him, Blaine tipped his head back, rolling it to the side and burying his mouth in the curve where Frank’s neck met his collarbone. He sucked gently on the skin between panting breaths as Frank’s coiled fist picked up speed, and their hips rolled together in unison. 

Blaine’s hand snaked up to cup the back of Frank’s neck, trying to force their bodies closer together. He didn’t care about the angle or the rough pull of the costume, about the edge of the corset digging into his side; he just needed _more_. More of this, more of whatever was happening to him right now, because he’d never felt anything so real and right and perfect in his entire life. There was a stranger curled tight around his body, holding him like they’d done this a thousand times before, and somehow it felt like they had.

He moaned, muffling the sound against Frank’s throat as the hand wrapped around him pumped faster, and a firm squeeze set off alarm bells up his spine. “Oh god, I’m-”

In an instant the warmth was gone, slipping down behind him as Frank dropped to his knees and turned. Blaine barely registered the feeling of being pressed back, of the empty glasses frames tumbling from his face, and his briefs and pants being pulled down. All he felt was the strange rush of cold that hit right before a mind-shattering wave of wet, incredible warmth sliding down and enveloping his cock. He threw his head back, eyes rolling up into his skull as he scrambled for purchase on the walls and came harder than he ever had before. 

“Ku- ohh my _god_.”

He barely kept himself from collapsing to the floor, held up only by the plaster wall and the grip on both his thighs from the man beneath him. 

“What did you say?”

Blaine blinked, trying to bring his mind back into focus. “W-what?”

“What did you say, a minute ago?” Frank asked again, the tone of voice bordering on concerned.

“I – I said... um. Oh my god?” Blaine murmured slowly, trying to form proper words. “That. I. That was…”

Frank narrowed his eyes for a moment, staring up from beneath perfectly painted angled brows like he was trying to decipher a code in Blaine’s face. All Blaine could do was blink stupidly down at him, still numb and trying to hear past the whistle in his ears.

Before he could put together what was happening, Frank tucked him back into his pants, drawing them up and together as he got to his feet on those absurdly tall boots. He adjusted Blaine’s costume methodically, buttoning his shirt up to his collar and smoothing it down with his fingers, gaze fixed on his hands as they worked.

“Thank you,” Blaine whispered, watching the dip of Frank’s profile as he moved. “I’ve never, that – that was... Thank you.”

“Easier than finding you a new pair of tighty whities,” Frank said playfully, patting Blaine on the ass. He smirked, and in an instant that gentle side of him vanished behind the scarlet-lipped smile from that first night. “Don’t get your panties twisted up, it was a blowjob. Helps the nerves. Now you’re on.”

“I’m on?”

Frank tipped his head in confirmation, and the drone in Blaine’s ears gave way to the distant sounds of the opening song. 

“Oh crap!” He pushed past, almost tripping over the table and barely managing to keep himself from faceplanting on the ground as he staggered towards the curtain. At least backstage was clear: nobody had seen them.

“Hey!” Frank’s voice called out behind him, and he wheeled on the spot.

Frank slid smoothly over to him, entirely too graceful for a man on four inch heels, and handed him the empty frames. “You need these,” he said teasingly. “And – hey!” he called again as Blaine shoved the glasses over his nose and resumed his mad rush towards the curtain. He stopped again, looking back.

“Don’t forget your jacket,” Frank pointed to the second table.

“Thank you,” Blaine said, frantically tugging on the rest of his costume and slipping through the velvet waves of fabric.

On the other side he met with half the cast, sitting quietly on the steps and waiting for their cues. Janet’s face lit up the moment she spied him, and she reached for his hand. “Where were you? No time for that now, come on, we’re on in a sec.”

“Where’s my favorite finely crafted fairy ass?” a deep voice asked to his right, and Blaine peered into the shadows at the smirking blond boy who’d spoken.

“Shut the fuck up, Rocky,” Magenta snapped, and glared when the boy thrust his hips at her. “Put some ice on it,” she growled.

Blaine’s jaw had set, and was aching from how hard his teeth were clenched. Even with his post-orgasmic haze still lingering at the periphery of his mind, there was no softening that sick little smile. He didn’t like this guy at all.

A flash of movement and light caught his attention as Frank slipped through the curtains, and he smiled softly when their eyes met. Frank raised an eyebrow at him, but didn’t smile back.

“What took you so long, Ladypipes? Had to get someone’s tongue out of that fine ass before you could walk again?” Rocky taunted.

Blaine opened his mouth to answer back, face drawn in anger, but Janet beat him to the punch. 

“Don’t be stupid, you know Frankie doesn’t fool around with anybody in the cast. Ever. Now shut your cake hole, or at least put a cock in it,” she snapped. “Then maybe I can enjoy something coming out of there for once.”

Snickers echoed from half the cast, and Rocky sank back down into his seat without another word.

Frank's scarlet lips curled into a fond smile as he closed the gap between them and slid an arm around Janet’s shoulders. “If you ever find that filter of yours, Jan, don’t you dare pick it up. Just keep walking.”

Blaine smiled softly at the exchange, warmed by it and saddened all the same. He wondered what it felt like, to have friends like that. To be defended, even when you didn’t ask.

He shot a glare at Rocky as the song played out, and stood, looking over to Janet to follow her onto the stage. Instead, he caught Frank’s lingering gaze, and realised in that moment that there was fear there, somewhere behind those placid eyes and the cool exterior he was working so hard to keep up. It was impossible to spot unless you’d seen it enough times before, but to Blaine it was unmistakable.

What was it Janet said? _Frankie doesn’t fool around with anybody in the cast. Ever._

His brow creased in confusion, but all the replaying visions of his hands gliding over skin, of that perfect taste and smell of him, all of it fled from his consciousness the moment Janet’s hand was in his, and he was being dragged into a spotlight.


	4. Chapter 4

It was a lot like coming home.

His nerves had fled the moment the first few lines slipped from his tongue, so much easier than he’d ever imagined. Even the deliberate jeering callbacks from the crowd and the side-cast couldn’t hold back the sound that burst out of him, singing and running around the stage like he’d done it a hundred times before. _The road was long, but I ran it._

Somehow, under those lights and he towering backdrop of the cinema screen, he was sixteen again.

After the first two missed cues and another forgotten line, what was left of his fear gave way to laughter and the need to carry on. Janet kept him in time, kept his feet on the ground and guided him flawlessly through until the moment the _Time Warp_ faded out – and then there was nothing but Frank.

Blaine’s mouth went dry the moment he stepped out. It wasn’t just the costume; of course he’d seen it up close and personal before. It wasn’t just the confidence and the stage presence, or the way his vocal register dropped smoothly into _Sweet Transvestite_. It was all of it, right down to the roll of those hips, tugging mercilessly on the tight garter straps that framed his pale, muscular thighs. Blaine couldn’t understand how he could move like that without dislocating something.

He was grateful, all at once, for his impromptu side-curtain blowjob before the show, else he’d have come in his pants by now.

By the time he’d been stripped down to his underwear, he was already having too much fun to care about being exposed. The round of wolf-whistles would have left him bright red and blushing to his toes if it wasn't for the look on Frank’s face. It only lasted a moment, just a flash, dark in those stunning eyes – but Blaine caught it: the sweeping gaze that raked over his exposed chest, and down his naked legs. An ache began to pool in his hips, and in retrospect, maybe that one blowjob wasn’t enough after all.

He didn’t know how he made it through the bedroom scene alive, with Frank hovering over him, pressing kisses down his chest. A wet, pink tongue flicked over his nipple and Blaine jerked on the table that was set up as the ‘bed’. The crowd didn’t matter anymore, their screams and their callbacks, because Frank was on top of him, Frank’s mouth was on his skin. He’d dropped a line or two before, but now his mind was blank, and he sent up a silent thank you to Barry Bostwick for existing and keeping the dialogue running in any capacity.

By the end of the show, his body was thrumming with a delicious mixture of adrenaline and arousal. Half of him wanted to run laps around the building. The other half wanted to pin Frank to the wall and undo that stupid corset with his teeth.

The moment it ended, they rushed back, pouring down the stairs to the side stage and skip-stepping over toast and confetti and streamers. He burst through the velvet curtain flanked by fellow cast-members, laughing and stumbling. The girls had clapped him on the back, punched his arm, hugged him and welcomed him officially. _Way to bust your cherry, Brad. Congrats. First night is over! You’re in it, now._

He nodded along, but he wasn’t paying that much attention. His eyes scanned the room for Frank.

The open space was packed thicker than he was used to, the Transylvanians swarming backstage and laughing loudly in groups with the floor cast. Frank was nowhere to be found amidst the sequinned sea of bodies, but Blaine kept searching, pushing past friends and smiling politely whenever anybody congratulated him.

It was only the need to find space to breathe that led him to the back corner of the room by the fire exit, and there was Frank, shoulders hunched defensively as Rocky smirked at him and mouthed something Blaine couldn’t make out. A sharp flare of anger rose in his chest at the defiant look on Frank’s face, and Blaine pushed past the group of girls blocking his path, apologising quietly as he moved.

By the time he’d slipped past the first group, Rocky had already slinked off with that same sick grin on his lips, and Blaine shuddered. He glanced back over to Frank, barely able to see the outline of his dark, spiked hair past the crowd, and someone else’s – a white hat on teased curls. _Magenta._ Pressing back against the wall, he edged closer, and caught the faint sound of their voices.

“- not an idiot, Frankie. You can fool him, but not me. I know.”

“It’s not like that.” Frank’s voice was different somehow, higher than Blaine had heard it before, and he sounded exhausted.

“I know, babe.” Magenta’s voice again, this time without her usual sultry lilt. “I know it’s not like that, or else you wouldn’t let it happen. I know you, remember?”

_What the hell did that mean?_

“It’s nothing,” Frank’s voice was softer now, sounding almost resigned. There was a long pause, a huff of laughter, and a strange noise that could easily have been an exasperated sigh. “God, I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Yeah, you do,” Madge said fondly.

“It’s nothing,” Frank said again, this time more confidently, as if he were trying to convince himself. “The boys that come through here, all of them, they all want this. They want Frank. I learned that a long time ago, I don’t know why I doubted it now.”

Blaine’s brow furrowed in confusion and frustration. What the hell did Rocky say to him?

Frank _had_ to know how incredible he was, how amazing he looked, Blaine reasoned with himself. He had to know how magnetic he could be, to get away with half the moves he pulled on that stage with so much confidence. But then assholes like Rocky came along, and twisted it into something ugly, something creepy and lascivious.

Blaine wanted to sink his boot right in the middle of that stupid, sick little smile.

By the time he realised he’d been caught up in his own head, their voices had stopped. When looked up again, they’d vanished into the now dissipating crowd of the cast, filing out the heavy exit doors, a few lingering around to help clean.

He cursed himself quietly, searching the stragglers for any sign of Frank before he went to gather his bag. He’d wanted to say something. Do something. 

More than anything right now, with the last spits of adrenaline and lust burning under his skin, he wanted to feel Frank beneath his fingers one more time before the night was over. He wanted to say _thank you_ , and _that was amazing_ , and _you were right_. But it was too late now. He had seven days to wait.

Seven days that soon became the worst kind of eternity. 

The only saving grace came from his Monday morning trip to the café, and that moment he waited all week for. Kurt breezed in with his usual elegance, this time in stunning white and silver, with grey pants and a gunmetal jacket, hair perfectly swept up into a flawless swirl of light brown. Blaine sipped his coffee, a smile curling at the corner of his mouth as he watched Kurt find his seat and fold his legs smoothly, pushing his glasses up his nose while he flicked over a magazine.

Every tiny movement, every gesture and tilt of his head, shift of his shoulders, was just like it had always been. Perfect.

Blaine sighed, eyes drooping sleepily over the warm steam rising up against his face. Even the back of Kurt was beautiful. He should know, he’d seen it often enough. One day, he hoped, Kurt would face the other way, sit in the opposite chair, and he’d be able to see his face properly again, memorize the lines of his nose and his cheekbones for more than a split second in passing.

It didn’t matter, for now. He was just grateful for Monday mornings.

The rest of the week felt like a slow march to a funeral dirge. Every part of the office was duller, now, contrasting with the flashes of spotlights and glitter in his mind. He waited, as patiently as he could manage, for Friday to find him again.

When it finally did, he found himself at the theatre early, already in costume and helping the ushers set up.

“Well somebody’s enthusiastic.” Riff had laughed, and given him a supportive clap on the shoulder in passing. 

Most of the rest of the cast had rolled their eyes, or smiled at him as they went by. He wondered why he felt a strange discomfort in his stomach every time the theatre doors swung open and someone new walked through. 

No, he knew why. Because the person walking through those doors was never Frank.

He tracked Janet down at the first opportunity; wanting to cover the cues he’d missed the week before. She obliged with a laugh, pointing out the small things to listen for and look for, to help stay on time.

“You’re an eager bunny today, Brads, got someone special in the audience tonight?” Madge asked from her seat at the table while she watched them rehearse.

Blaine glanced at her quickly, resuming his practice as he spoke. “Oh! No, just. Want to get it right.”

“Do you have a boyfriend?” Janet asked suddenly. “Because we’re going to want to meet him. And flirt with him. And then get you two drunk enough to have sex in front of us.”

Already adapting to her lack of filter, Blaine watched her with an amused glint in his eyes.

“While we video-tape it,” she added at last.

“No,” he said, shaking his head with a soft laugh. “No... _boyfriend_.”

“Oh, wait,” Janet ducked her head down, peering at his face. “But there is somebody?”

Blaine couldn’t help the flush that swept from his neck to the roots of his hair.

“There is!” Janet declared, playing scandalised. She nudged his stomach playfully with her knuckles. “Who is it? Lover? Fling? Crush?” and then, at the tiny flash of admission in his eyes, “Ooohhhh, look at you, you have a crush!”

“Oh my _god_ ,” he mumbled, embarrassed.

“Someone from the show?” Madge asked quickly, her voice low and a little dangerous.

“No, no,” Blaine waved his hand dismissively. “It’s nothing. He’s just this guy I … sort of work with, at my office. But not really. It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing,” Janet accused. “It’s something! Look at your face, you have it bad for this guy!”

“Janet,” Madge warned quietly.

“You do!” she squealed in delight. “What’s he like? Is he gorgeous, I bet he’s gorgeous.”

“He is,” Blaine breathed, his voice dropping to a whisper. “He’s … perfect. But he doesn’t even know-”

“Frank! I need you over here, sugar!” Trixie’s voice called from the other side of the room, and Blaine turned and froze. 

Frank was right there, just a few feet away from him, tucked against Madge’s side and staring. Blaine just barely managed to catch the numb, empty look on his face before it flickered and vanished beneath a painted scarlet smile.

“Coming, Trix!” Frank called, and leaned over to Madge. “Can you do me a favor?”

She nodded, eyes sparkling.

“The drugstore on the corner. Vicious red?” he asked softly.

With her shark grin pulling at her lips, she nodded again, rising from her seat. 

“Be right there!” Frank called to Trixie as he slid past, squeezing Madge’s hand before he let it go. 

Blaine’s heart stuttered in his chest as he tried to remember exactly what he’d said, but all of that blinked out of his consciousness the moment he found himself watching Frank walk away. He couldn’t keep his eyes from dropping down to the lines of his hips, the curve of his ass in those satin and lace panties, stretching across the muscle tightly with each stride.

He let out a shuddering breath, mouth open and shaking around words he couldn’t find.

“You and me both, babe,” Janet teased with a dirty grin. “You and me both.”

Blaine blushed again, laughing and letting her scoop both arms around his waist in a hug. It was odd, being held in such a familiar way by a near stranger, but it felt good at the same time.

His newfound comfort went out the window soon enough – by the time the show was starting, Blaine was trembling all over. 

It wasn't because he was nervous, his nerves had dissipated after that first night. No, this time he was trembling because he was actually hard, and aching in his pants by the time _Sweet Transvestite_ finished. Frank slinked over to him, almost purring aloud. 

It felt like every little move, every stretch and slide was exaggerated, was aimed at him. Every time Frank sat, those legs would spread wide and perch delicately, exposing the soft, smooth skin on the insides of this thighs. Blaine wanted to moan and press his mouth along the straps of those garters so badly he could almost taste the lace.

When Frank pulled the costume glasses from Blaine’s face and slid the end of an earpiece into his mouth, sucking around it softly and sliding it over his bottom lip, Blaine couldn’t stop himself from whimpering. 

He _had_ to be doing this on purpose. 

Blaine forced his eyes shut, trying to slow down his breathing, trying to adjust his raging hard-on before he wound up stripped down to his underwear.

 _No, why would he do it on purpose?_ Blaine decided he was just imagining it. It was just Frank being Frank, doing his job, but that notion went out the window fairly quickly once he was almost-naked and Frank actually slid his fingers inside the band of Blaine’s tighty whities. _“And what charming underclothes you both have.”_

The brush of Frank’s knuckles on the soft skin above his groin made Blaine’s eyes roll back, and he shuddered. _Breathe,_ he told himself. _Oh god. Just breathe. Keep going._

By the bedroom scene he was panting, writhing under Frank’s exploring mouth and trying not to scream. The slip of wet lips over his skin was different this time, slick like it wasn’t before, and intoxicating on top of the rest of Frank’s teasing game that night. His hips jerked out of his control, meeting Frank’s body once, twice and again before a firm hand pressed him down against the table, and the scene played on.

Once he was offstage again, aching and breathless and desperate for relief, Blaine decided that Frank was actually trying to kill him.

The show closed to roars from the audience and a fountain of leftover toast and streamers, and they staggered backstage as always, most of them laughing on the way and peeling themselves out of costumes.

Blaine walked stiffly behind, wincing at the ridiculously uncomfortable situation in his pants and trying to be as invisible as possible.

“Have fun tonight?” Madge asked with a smirk as he passed her.

He opened his mouth to reply but all that came out was a pathetic whimper. He started at her in a wide-eyed silent plea to let this go.

She tipped her head in sympathy, eyes flicking down to his crotch, and then lingering over his chest. “Wow, he did you good.”

Blaine gulped, shaking slightly and hunched over, dying to escape to a bathroom and take care of things. Preferably with Frank.

But Frank was, once again, nowhere to be found in the aftermath of the evening. Exhausted and desperate, Blaine pushed past the remaining cast members and found the backstage bathroom, slipping into a cubicle and flicking the lock with one hand.

He moaned, long and loud, the moment his fist wrapped around his aching cock and he was able to pump up and down in shaky movements. The familiarity didn’t matter right now, his hand had never felt so good, and in minutes he was coming in thick stripes over his fist, letting out a choked noise and rocking back against the cubicle wall.

Wiping himself down with toilet tissue, he flushed it away and pressed through the cubicle door to find a sink and clean up properly. He was two strides across the room when he caught sight of himself in a mirror and stopped dead.

Across his bare chest, in tiny open-mouth marks, were endless outlines of red lipstick.

His eyes narrowed tightly, and his jaw dropped as he stood there and stared. _How… what?_

The bathroom door swung open and Frank strode through, stopping still when he saw Blaine. His mouth curled into a smirk, and he moved over to the sink, eyes falling to watch as he washed glitter from his hands.

“Last week there wasn’t… you didn’t leave any…” Blaine had no idea what he was actually saying or trying to say, his brain still struggling to process what he was looking at.

“That was last week,” Frank said simply.

Blaine swallowed hard, eyes flicking back and forth. “Vicious red…” he repeated, remembering what Frank had asked Madge earlier.

“Stains skin for awhile,” Frank offered. “Might want to wear an undershirt to work.”

“You-” Blaine’s voice cut off as Frank turned on him, pressing in close unexpectedly.

“Think of it as a visual cue,” Frank said silkily. 

Blaine’s breath punched out of him in tiny, silent bursts as Frank slid one finger up his stomach and over his breastbone. Those bright blue eyes bore in to him for a long, lingering moment before they trailed down. Frank suddenly grinned to himself, collecting Blaine’s wrist and lifting his hand.

There was still a stripe of come across the back of two fingers, and Blaine swallowed audibly, eyes fluttering in panic as he tried to think of any words to explain.

Then Frank slid his mouth over both fingers, swirling his tongue around them slowly, and Blaine’s entire brain short circuited.

It felt like an explosion of deafening silence in his blood, like every nerve in his body was on fire as Frank sucked down the length of his fingers and looked up at him almost innocently at the same time from under long, black lashes.

Blaine moaned, watching helplessly as Frank pulled back and sucked down again, pressing his tongue gently against the pad of each finger and slipping his mouth off wetly with an obscene slurp.

“What – what was. What was that for?” Blaine managed to pant out as Frank licked his lips and turned for the door.

He disappeared with a rush of cool air, his voice just loud enough to echo through the empty bathroom. 

“You missed a spot.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In Rocky Horror, the last number is Floorshow, where Brad and Janet (among others) end up in corsets and fishnets, too. Because the shadow cast for AP do it live, they have to change very quickly. 
> 
> Warning again for bullying and sexual harassment from a douchebag near the end, but it's brief.

The game lasted another two weeks. 

Two more shows, and Blaine had wound up in a cubicle after both of them, stroking himself and muffling his moans as best he could. He shuffled home each time to crowd his bathroom sink, trying in vain to work the stains of red lipstick from his skin, trying to keep the flash of blue eyes under kohl from playing over in his head. 

He couldn’t keep his mind away from the memory, like a magnet he was drawn back with every absent thought – back to the smooth sound of that voice, to the weight of the muscles in those thighs and the way they slid under pale skin in the spotlight. The feeling of that mouth on his come-streaked fingers, on his chest, the feeling of those long, pale digits slipping around his cock and gliding over his body in the shadows backstage where nobody could see.

Blaine stopped dabbing uselessly at his chest and pressed both palms to the porcelain bench, shutting his eyes tight and breathing roughly against the _want_ and _need_ and _now_ swimming in his veins.

It was torture, pure and simple. It was agony, alone in the early hours of Saturday mornings, and it was driving him insane.

And he knew, with every fiber in his being, that he didn’t want it to stop.

By the fourth straight week of torture, he was waiting for it, waiting for that slide of greasy red drugstore barrel lipstick against his skin, knowing he’d have to hide it for days, not caring if it stained and ruined any more of his shirts. But it never came.

He tried to stay focused for the rest of the performance, but caught himself touching his own chest, thumbing under his collarbones in spare moments of minor dialogue, wondering why his fingers never came away red.

It was different. Frank was different, like the last month had never happened, like everything was as it had been that very first night. The disappointment clogged his throat, hollow and clawing at him, and unexpectedly raw. _Don’t be stupid,_ he scolded himself.

Once they clambered offstage, he’d made his routine trip to the bathroom, this time just to check.

Nothing.

Not a mark on him, and he caught the look on his own face in the mirror a moment too late. _God, you’re pathetic._

He’d grown used to the wide, empty space of the side-stage that greeted him whenever he emerged from his post-show bathroom visit. What he didn’t expect this time was Frank, crouched by the tables, kicking at his bag and muttering under his breath.

There was that lump in his throat again.

In a flash Frank was on his feet, tugging the bag up to the table to search it more thoroughly. He jerked around, almost in panic, when he realised he wasn’t alone. “Oh, it’s just you,” he said, smiling and somewhat relieved as he resumed to his search.

“Just me,” Blaine agreed quietly, and winced at the sound of his own voice.

The defeated tone registered for Frank too, and he glanced back over again. “Are you alright?”

“Why did you… what changed?” Blaine asked before he could stop himself. _Great, Blaine. Just bring that up. That’s just great._

Frank’s eyes narrowed in confusion.

Blaine looked down at his chest, and then to the ground. “Never mind, I’m just – tired, ignore me,” he said with a dismissive laugh, waving a hand and walking over to find his own carry bag and get out as quickly as he could. _Don’t say anything stupid, Blaine, just get your bag, get changed and go._

“Jan,” Frank said softly as Blaine came to his side.

Blaine blinked. “Sorry, what?”

“Jan asked me,” Frank continued, turning to face him, “to stop using the lipstick. She couldn’t get it off her costume after the last week, she didn’t want me to ruin another one.”

“Oh,” Blaine said quietly. He'd forgotten than Frank had a bed scene with Janet too, that he wasn't the only one who'd wound up with stains. He tried very hard to look anywhere that wasn’t directly at Frank.

Frank smirked.

“I guess I thought you didn’t…” Blaine paused, his brain trying to get the words out while his sensibility fought them back down at the same time. “That you were… you know…”

Frank’s shook his head, silently asking for clarification.

“That you were done. With me.” Blaine finished, his head tucked down in defeat.

It took a moment for Blaine to notice that Frank was looking him up and down, gaze lingering over his legs and the curve of his ass in the black speedos he used for the _Floorshow_ finale. He always kicked off the heels and peeled off the corset as soon as he was backstage, before he went to the bathroom – it was rough and uncomfortable from the Velcro they’d used to make it quick-change, easy to get into mid performance. He had no idea how Frank managed an actual, honest-to-god lace-up corset for the entire show.

Like a rush of cool wind sweeping his body, Blaine realised in an instant that he was standing there looking like a kicked puppy, half naked, with sweat-drenched curls sticking to his forehead, wearing a black speedo and thigh-high fishnets. _Oh god, what am I doing?_

“Done with you?” Frank repeated, his gaze shifting away. “Funny, I was wondering the same thing. About me.”

Blaine’s embarrassment took a backseat instantly at the tone of Frank’s voice. He blinked numbly for a moment, mouth open and searching for words before the pieces snapped together in his head. 

He hadn’t done anything, not one thing, to make Frank think he wanted more of this. _Blaine Anderson, you are a fucking moron._

“You always do what _other_ people want you to, don’t you?” Frank asked casually, still looking down at his flattened bag.

Unsure of how to reply, Blaine rubbed at the back of his neck. He suppressed a shudder at the sweeping memory of the law firm, and the last lecture he’d attended, where he’d fallen asleep and drooled on his sleeve. His father's voice, as always, played in the background. _You’re an Anderson, son. Live up to the name. Make me proud._

“I… guess.”

Frank smiled, but it was a sad smile. Even through the make-up, that much Blaine could see. 

“Have you ever wondered what would happen if you didn’t?”

Blaine was moving before he could form another coherent thought, pressing into Frank’s space and brushing his fingers lightly over the laces that ran down the corset over his navel. “I want – I mean, I’m not...”

“Done?” Frank asked, his voice breaking slightly.

“ _God_ , no,” Blaine breathed. His eyes drifted closed as his fingers dropped lower, and the two of them walked together in stunted steps until Frank’s back hit the wall.

Blaine tried not to shake as he moved his hands up Frank’s sides slowly, his eyes following their path.

“You _really_ don’t do this,” Frank tipped his head to watch Blaine’s expression, “do you?”

He swallowed, trying not to second-guess himself again, trying to stop his mouth from drying out as the pads of his fingers grazed over the garter straps on Frank’s thighs. He looked up timidly from under long, dark lashes. “No, I don’t.”

“You want to,” Frank stated calmly.

“Yes,” Blaine whispered, his breath coming faster now.

“You don’t do anything _you_ really want, do you?” Frank asked, eyes bright and searching.

“No,” Blaine managed on a choked sound. “I don’t.”

His breath caught as he met Frank's gaze. He was still, and stunning in the dim light that framed his pale face, making the wet red of his lips seem almost violent in contrast.

Frank mouthed, so quiet Blaine wouldn't have heard if he wasn't only inches away: "You should."

His entire frame caved in at the whisper of sound, crowding Frank into the wall as he rose up on his feet and kissed him fiercely. Frank’s lips parted quickly, letting Blaine in, letting him lick inside and taste him like he’d needed to for weeks. Blaine pressed their bodies together, scrambling and bucking forward at the slide of Frank’s thigh between his legs.

When Frank groaned against him, Blaine let his mouth pull into a smile, and a tiny thrill of victory shot down his spine. They kissed wetly in bursts of frantic lips and gasping sound, sucking back on each other’s tongues before Blaine lowered down from the balls of his feet and started mouthing at Frank’s collarbones, hands gripping his hips and pushing him hard into the wall.

“Oh god,” Frank gasped, eyes drifting closed as Blaine mapped a path up and down his neck, firm hands gliding over both thighs. His fingers pushed under each garter strap to stroke lightly between lace and skin. 

“ _Fuck_.”

He dropped lower still, breathing hotly and licking over any skin bared through triangle patterns of the corset laces. Frank let out a tiny mewling sound as Blaine ended up on his knees, tongue and lips probing under the straps and along at the twitching muscles of his open thighs. 

Blaine buried his face there, fingers pressed into the muscle and bones of Frank’s hips and sliding over the satin of the briefs. He took his time, dragging his tongue over creases of soft skin, encouraged with every whimper and moan pouring down from above him like applause.

He bit down softly on the exposed thigh just below the line of lace that cut the seen from the unseen, earning himself a cry of ecstasy from Frank and a shudder that rippled up his entire body. Blaine felt like he was on fire, moving without a second thought and finally in control of himself, ready to stop denying himself everything he wanted. And right now, everything he wanted was Frank, in his mouth, filling him and stretching his lips and dripping on his tongue.

Thumbing gently over both hipbones he glanced up, his bruised and wet lips glistening in the leftover light as he sought out Frank’s gaze. But Frank’s head was thrown back, eyes closed. His mouth hung open in pure rapture, both arms above his head and fingers gripping tightly to the solid metal curtain clasp. 

Blaine smirked, and nuzzled gently at the thick, warm bulge straining at the fabric in front of him, stopping to mouth along the outline of Frank’s painfully hard cock.

Frank moaned loudly, hips pressing forward against Blaine’s tongue as he worked him over through the satin with little mercy, leaving it wet and clinging to the shape. He’d pinned Frank’s body to the wall with both hands, stroking possessively up and down past the top of the briefs, unclipping the garter straps and tugging at the fabric with every slide until he finally caught the edges with his fingertips and stripped them over Frank’s thighs. 

“Oh _fuck_ ,” Frank groaned, eyes rolling back as Blaine’s fist coiled around the base of his cock and a hot, wet mouth slid down the length of him completely.

Blaine made a gravelly, desperate noise around him, gliding his lips back and forth, building a rhythm and squeezing his own muscles violently against the rising warning that was pooling in his belly. The taste of Frank, the weight of him on his tongue sent waves of pleasure into every nerve, and Blaine sucked eagerly back, pulling off with a slurp to lick up the underside and trace a heavy vein. 

He panted breathlessly, fighting his own need and glancing up for a moment to take in every inch of Frank with his eyes. A primal, filthy sound made its way out of him, hips twitching and muscles flaring at the sight of Frank’s cock arching perfectly up towards his belly, wet from Blaine’s mouth and glistening obscenely. He dipped his head to take both balls in turn, swirling his tongue as he sucked each into his mouth. He rolled them over his lips, trying not to choke on his groan as Frank let out a torrent of pleas and noises above him. 

“ _Blaine_ , oh, god,” he stuttered out on sharp breaths, eyes still closed, head pressed back and thrashing side to side as his shoulder blades slid up and down the wall. “Fuck. Oh _god_.”

Licking up the length of him again, Blaine pressed his tongue across the slit, letting out a blissful sound at the way the taste melted into his senses, perfect and strange and wonderful all at the same time. Frank’s head rolled forward, arms still clinging tight to the curtain clasp to keep him upright as a wave of begging sounds poured out of him at the overwhelming sensations.

Blaine tried to ignore the almost painful ache in his own pants before he sank down, abused lips stretching tight while he pumped his fist once, and again, and sucked hard over the slick head.

With a violent cry, Frank threw his head back and came, his mouth open and throat exposed, hips jerking forward and pushing him deep down Blaine’s throat as he swallowed around him over and over. Blaine whimpered at the stretch and the fullness, clinging to Frank’s hips for all he was worth. The taste, the feel of Frank coming down his throat and the press of Frank’s body against his face sent him over like a tidal, and Blaine managed a shattered, muffled moan around the cock in his mouth as he came, untouched, in his pants.

Frank was still shaking above him, chest flashing with sharp breaths as he rode the aftershocks of his orgasm, his hands falling to rest on Blaine’s head gently.

With a quick glance up as he let Frank’s cock slip out of his mouth, Blaine smiled weakly, lines creasing at the sides of his tired eyes. 

Frank’s fingers wound into Blaine's hair, and he stared down at him with a strange look in his eyes. In his post-orgasm haze, Blaine wondered if he was mistaking awe for affection.

“You’re very, very good at that,” Frank laughed softly.

“So I’m told,” Blaine shot back with a grin, his voice gravelled and cracking from the strain on his throat. He rubbed soothingly at Frank’s thigh for a moment, enjoying the playful fingers teasing his hair.

A new expression flashed across Frank’s face when he realised what he was doing. It was almost hidden by the make-up, but it was there all the same. He straightened quickly, letting go of Blaine’s hair to pull up his briefs, and re-clip the garter straps.

Blaine stilled at the sudden change of mood, confused and a little stung until Frank looked down again and smiled warmly. But it wasn’t the same as the look he’d given him a moment ago. This was different. It seemed … controlled.

“Thank you,” he said, helping Blaine to his feet.

“You’re… welcome?”

“I should get home, it’s late,” Frank told him, striding back over to the table and scooping up the strap of his bag to pull it over his shoulder. “And you need to clean up.”

“W-wait, we just…” Blaine noticed mid sentence that Frank’s bag was flat, and empty. But he was still in costume. “You’re going home dressed like that?”

“What can I say?” Frank shrugged as he sauntered to the door. “I do what I want.”

“You’ll get mugged,” he said concernedly, following for a few steps before Frank waved him off. 

“I’ll get a cab. Home’s not far. Stop worrying.”

Blaine ran both hands through his hair, stomach churning with the sudden turn of events and his skin prickling with discomfort from the mess still in his briefs. “I can’t help worrying,” he said.

Frank gave him a tiny smile, just a curve at the edge of his mouth, but his eyes shone with affection. There it was again, and Blaine grinned. He didn’t imagine it.

“Goodnight, Blaine,” Frank called back as he slipped through the exit door and out onto the street.

“Goodnight,” Blaine said, mostly to himself, as the door swung shut. 

With a blissful sigh, he wandered back over to his bag to gather his change of clothes when he spotted the note in his peripheral vision. It was just a piece of paper, sitting on the ground, scrunched up like it had been balled inside a fist. On closer inspection, the faint outline of sharpie marker sinking through to the back and one word – _whore_ – made bile rise in Blaine’s throat.

He reached down and plucked it from the floor, unfolding it carefully and pressing it onto the table. The handwriting was thick and blocky, and something instantly told him it wasn’t Frank’s.

> _Guess who’s got your clothes, whore? Why don’t you come by my place, wrap those pretty lady lips around my cock for a while. I know you love it on your knees like you ain’t never got it, so come over here if you want your shit back and I’ll show you what a real cock tastes like._

The blow to the table cost Blaine the skin off two knuckles, but he didn’t care. It was better than throwing up, which is mostly what he wanted to do. The note was signed, with an address written out below it. Rocky. _Of course._

He was three strides to the door and ready for a fight before he remembered he was in his underwear, his come-stained underwear no less, and he stopped and screamed in frustration, pressing the heels of both palms to his eyes. 

_Frank didn’t take the note. He didn’t have the address. He wasn’t going._ Blaine kept repeating the obvious to himself, over and over, but it didn’t stop his anger at the fact that the note existed in the first place.

He didn't have his number. There was nothing he could do. At least, not until the next show.

He turned back to the table and buried the ball of paper in his bag, scooping it up and hauling himself off to the bathroom to clean up. Fear awoke in the back of his mind, and he wondered just how well Frank and Rocky really knew each other. Did they work together? Did Rocky know how to reach him outside of the theatre?

Worry seeped in to his chest, burrowing in with the anger and frustration. Blaine closed his eyes, and wondered how the hell he was supposed to survive the next week until Friday came around again.


	6. Chapter 6

The weekend was hard enough, but Monday’s trip to _Café Destin_ faded away into the morning along with his alarm sounds while he slept clean through. He’d dragged himself to work an hour late, been reprimanded like a child and sent to the copy room for most of the day. And for the first time, he didn't care. 

Something inside him had changed.

Gone was the placid smile that never reached his eyes, the nod at each command and the undercurrent of an eternal need to please these people. His gaze remained unfixed, wandering as he listened to instructions or demands. He kept to himself, he did what he was expected to; but any air of desperation had slipped out of his being, replaced now with a quiet confidence, thrumming and crackling like electricity under his skin.

It began the moment he fell to his knees that night, and it hadn’t dissipated since. _You don't do anything **you** really want, do you?_

_You should._

He stopped worrying about taking his breaks at the perfect allocated times, about not being so much as a second late getting back. His work was done without his usual frantic double-check to ensure everything was perfect. He stopped staring at the carpet when he walked through the hallways, and started muttering quiet, abusive callbacks under his breath whenever the senior partners passed him by.

Somehow, nothing seemed so big anymore. His future, the law firm, the whole unconquerable mountain had become a strange and unwanted molehill he had little interest in standing on.

He just wanted to make it back to Friday.

 _Monday,_ his brain corrected him, and he froze for a moment. Right. Monday. He waited for Mondays, not Fridays.

He sighed, slumped against the elevator wall on his way out of the office one afternoon, eager to get home and out of his suit. The lift let out a familiar _ding!_ as the doors slid open.

Making his way out into the marble lobby, he adjusted his bag, stepping around other fast-escaping employees from various offices and trying to keep out of everyone’s way. At least work was over, and with his class schedule free, he had a quiet night ahead of him.

His eyes grew wide the moment he glanced out the huge glass doors, stopping to stare openly as he tried to process exactly what he was looking at.

_Kurt._

Kurt, or at least, the all-too-familiar back of him, was right there. He was right _there_ , on the street outside the huge glass lobby windows, caught up in a warm embrace with another man. 

Blaine felt something hot lodge thickly in his throat as the stranger grinned over Kurt’s shoulder, both arms wrapped tight around his back. He was huge, whoever he was, and broad like some kind of gargantuan quarterback. 

The sinking sensation in Blaine’s stomach suddenly left him feeling like half his organs were somewhere near his knees.

_Kurt had a boyfriend._

Blaine’s open lips trembled softly around nothing, and he blinked a few times, moving in awkward half-steps when passers by began to bump into him and glare.

He was numb the rest of the way home, breathing air like soup and walking clumsily on cotton wool. Kurt had a boyfriend. He could even have a _husband_ , for all Blaine knew. 

He couldn’t feel anything. Even his scolding inner voice was silent, drowned out by the sickly feeling in his chest that washed through his blood and left an absent whistle in his eardrums.

The days dripped by at an agonising pace, and Friday was no exception. By the time he reached the theatre he’d managed to bury all thoughts of his miserable week at the back of his mind, focusing instead on the gathering rage that was anchored by the note in his pocket.

Side-stage there was no sign of Rocky yet, no hint of telltale sandy hair or that nauseating sneer that seemed permanently spread across his face. Blaine changed, dragging himself into costume distractedly and glancing around every few minutes until Col and Riff shifted, and there he was, struggling into his gold hotpants.

Blaine let go of his bag, his brow dropping into an angry glare as he bee-lined determinedly to his target. He’d made it four strides across the room before a strong arm coiled around his waist, practically dragging him off his feet towards the wall by the exit door. He stumbled under the pull, struggling in protest as Frank gave him a sharp shove that sent his back colliding with the smooth black-painted concrete. 

Frank shifted gracefully in front of him, blocking his view. “What are you doing?”

“Well I was going to show Rocky what a real _fist_ tastes like,” Blaine spat angrily, tilting to try and peer around Frank’s frame.

Frank’s hand pressed into Blaine’s chest, holding him back against the wall. After a moment spent searching his face, he let out a long, exasperated sigh and let his head hang as his eyes fluttered closed. “You found the note.”

“I found the note,” Blaine repeated. “How is he still here? When he does things like that? It’s harassment!”

“I’m working on it,” Frank said, and he glanced up as he spoke. “I have it under control, but it’ll help if you could not get arrested for assault in the meantime.”

Blaine let out a huff of frustration, swallowing down his anger and growling under his breath. “Fine, alright. I … can do that. But if it happens again, I–” 

“You’ll do _nothing_ ,” Frank instructed calmly. “Because I need to take care of this myself.”

They locked eyes for a moment, Frank searching him carefully for any sign of understanding. 

“Alright,” he whispered, resigned.

“Do you still have it?”

Reluctantly, Blaine pushed a fist into his pocket, dragging out the crumpled note and pressing it into Frank’s open and outstretched palm.

“Thank you.” Frank’s voice was gentle like it had never been, and Blaine felt a tremor at the warmth in his eyes.

Blaine couldn’t help but move with the invisible pull he felt, drawing in to Frank’s chest and reaching up to cup his jaw. When Frank stepped back suddenly, flashing him a quick look of warning, Blaine almost choked on the surge of disappointment that came before the recognition.

_Not here, not now._

The rest of the cast milled around them noisily, throwing props back and forth and singing fragments of random pop songs as they prepared. Nobody seemed to have noticed their exchange, and Blaine breathed a silent sigh of relief. The last thing he needed right now was to screw this up. He didn’t want to think about what he’d be left with, if he lost this too.

What had been an absent thought turned out to be a dam break, and with that notion slithering around in his mind all he could think about for the rest of their performance that night was how badly he could potentially screw _everything_ up.

All he could think about was Kurt, and the boyfriend. That soon became his stupid bosses, and his father’s disappointed expression at their last family dinner. He couldn’t even remember why it was there, this time. 

That surge of frustration then melted into the shape of Frank, his Frank, hiding him away like some dirty secret until the day he blew it. And then Frank would look at him that way, too. 

Disappointed.

He wondered if Kurt would look at him that way, if he ever really knew the truth.

Blaine dropped his cues all night, struggling to remember simple lines and shooting looks of apology to the others as they carried on regardless. He tried to focus, tried to steady himself and escape from the torrent of what-ifs in his own head. 

The bile that rose in his throat every time Rocky opened his mouth wasn’t helping anything. It didn’t matter that he was only speaking his lines; all Blaine could hear was the note. All Blaine could hear was _lady lips_ and _whore_.

The show ended to a mediocre smattering of applause, and as the cast filed backstage Blaine tried to ignore the feeling that every muttered word and frustrated grumble was aimed at him.

He shuffled quickly to the bathroom, dragging his bag behind him and changing tiredly in the largest stall. As much as he enjoyed the strange sense of power and freedom the costume gave him, tonight he was ready to be rid of it, to be plain and boring Blaine again. The student. The intern. Invisible, agreeable ( _pushover_ , his brain supplied) Blaine.

Glancing at himself in the mirror as he came out, he flinched at the outline of his face, appearing almost sickly under the harsh glow of the fluorescent bathroom lights. _Nothing special_ , he thought to himself. _No wonder he doesn’t know who you are._

He trailed his fingers lightly over the edges of the corset poking out the side of his half-zipped bag. What a strange thing, to slip out of Brad and back into himself with the peel of fishnets and leather. All he saw now was Blaine. Just a kid in jeans and a ratty old long-sleeve t-shirt he’d had since he was in high school, but he loved all the same. It didn’t matter how long he stayed in the city, somehow that one shirt always smelled like home. _Like Dalton_ , he corrected himself.

Tired and bone-weary, he pushed past the door with his shoulder, stepping out into the empty room. Frank was waiting for him, this time, not distracted or going about his own worries but visibly waiting, leaning back against the wall with his arms folded neatly and his long legs jutting out on a slope, crossed at the ankle. “There you are.”

Blaine managed a weak smile. “Sorry, I know that was… I was terrible. I’ll do better, next week.”

“Did he turn you down?” Frank asked suddenly, his expression impassive but his eyes flickering with curiosity.

Bemused, Blaine moved closer. “Sorry?”

“You’re walking around like someone stomped on your heart before they spat on it,” Frank said, lightly enough that it felt like a friendly tease. “Either you asked the guy out and he said no, or he died.” Then, in a rush: “Oh god, he didn’t die, did he? Please tell me he didn’t, I don’t need that kind of guilt.”

Blaine laughed softly, closing his eyes for a moment. “No, he… I mean. It’s nothing,” he said.

Frank’s gaze narrowed. “But it’s about him.”

Blaine shifted awkwardly. “It’s silly. It’s nothing, really. He… he has a boyfriend.”

Something flashed across Frank’s face, something that looked a little bit like victory. “That’s it? What, he didn’t tell you about him?”

“Oh, no,” Blaine mumbled, embarrassed and staring at the floor, “it’s not like that, he’s … I’m … he doesn’t know I exist. He’d never… God, he’d never look at me twice.” Blaine admitted with a shrug, trying to play it off as casually as possible. 

Frank’s amused expression faded, replaced with a measuring stare.

“It’s ridiculous, I know, to … pine after someone who doesn’t even know your name,” Blaine said earnestly. “But that’s all it is. I’ve just worked it up so much in my head. But really it’s just … me. Pining.” He laughed, mostly at himself and how ridiculous it all seemed aloud.

“Why him?” Frank asked, his voice higher than usual. “If he doesn’t even know who you are?”

Blaine sighed, trying to come up with the words to explain as his eyes mapped the wall absently. 

“Have you ever … seen somebody, in just a fraction of a second but it felt like so much longer. And you knew, in that moment, that you were…” he struggled for a moment, mouth trembling. “You were _made_ to hold them? That you would give everything just to hear their voice? That’s how it felt, when I saw him. I mean, it sounds insane, it sounds like something out of a bad movie..."

Frank cocked his head to the side, watching him carefully as he spoke.

“But it happened, and I haven’t been the same since.”

With a slight nod, Frank wet his lips. He appeared expressionless, if maybe a little lost.

“It’s hard to explain,” Blaine used both hands to gesture as went on, his eyes still glancing around the room spoke passionately, “but have you ever just – seen someone for that one moment. And it didn’t matter how far away you were, or if they saw you too, you just knew, in that fraction of a second,” he breathed, “that they were absolutely perfect.”

Blaine didn’t see Frank shift to look at him, or the way Frank’s eyes trailed down the line of his profile to his mouth and up again. He didn’t see the flicker of sadness that swept across his features. 

“Yes,” Frank whispered. “I have.”

“Wait, how did you know?” Blaine asked suddenly, his brain finally catching up to realisation. “How did you know about him?”

Frank arched a painted eyebrow. 

“You _did_ hear me! That night, you were listening.”

“Of course I heard you,” he said with a scowl.

“The lipstick!” Blaine’s eyes widened. “That was … I mean, I knew it was deliberate, but that was because of…?”

Frank rolled his eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Blaine let out a punctuated laugh. Frank was jealous. Frank had heard him, and marked his body with his mouth for weeks on end because he was _jealous_. Blaine’s cock twitched in his pants as the awareness hit him. The knowledge left him aching; made him want to push Frank down into a cinema seat and strip those fishnets down with his teeth. He wanted to spread Frank’s legs as ridiculously wide as he knew they would stretch so he could settle there, against the heat of him, and taste him all over again. 

He dropped his bag, crowding into Frank’s space and holding him tight to the wall as he kissed him deeply. 

Frank whined against his mouth in delight, his tensed muscles relaxing under Blaine’s fingers. “Mmm,” he hummed softly when Blaine pulled away.

Studying him for a moment, Blaine drew a long breath. He wanted all of it, the heat and the rutting and the slide of skin on skin, and he wanted it with Frank. But first he had to know. “Why me?”

Stunned, Frank tipped his head back. “Why you what?”

“Why this, with me?” Blaine uttered, thumbs stroking over Frank’s sides as he spoke. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not asking you to stop, I just … don’t understand why you made an exception.”

Frank stilled, his Adam’s apple darting up and down in the dim light as he swallowed. With a tiny huff of breath he let his gaze fall, fingers trailing up and down Blaine’s biceps lightly as he tried to come up with an answer.

“Janet told me, she said it to everyone that night. You don’t fool around with the cast, ever,” Blaine went on. “I respect that, I do. But it would help if I knew why me. And why it’s a secret. I have to keep reminding myself not to touch you when they’re around." He squeezed possessively at Frank's sides. " _God_ , I want to touch you.”

The way Frank’s breath punched out of him in little bursts sent shivers up Blaine’s spine, and he felt the fingers on his arms grip against the muscle.

“I can’t,” Frank managed to whisper. “You have to trust me.”

Blaine dragged his teeth roughly over his bottom lip, trying to force down the thousand questions that rose in his mind. “Okay.”

As he met Blaine’s gaze, Frank’s eyes were heavy and half-lidded, filled with gratitude and something else; something indescribably warm that coiled inside Blaine’s chest and made his breath stutter.

“Can we still…” Blaine began to ask, trying to find the right words. _Don’t screw this up._ “Are we still going to do this?”

“Yes,” Frank said quickly. “If you want to.”

“I do,” Blaine replied just as fast, his huge eyes searching Frank’s face. “I don’t think I can… stop.”

Frank’s gaze dropped to the line of Blaine’s mouth for a moment, and lingered there, silence pressing around both of them before they met in a fierce kiss. Frank slid both long, gloved arms over Blaine’s shoulders, leaning into him as Blaine squeezed his hips again.

“Blaine,” he managed breathlessly as they pulled apart.

Blaine silenced him with another kiss, sliding both hands down and over the supple curve of his ass, cupping it in his palms. 

“I want you. _Please_ , I need-” Blaine begged in ragged breaths between kisses, and Frank nodded rapidly in agreement before they met again, and rolled against the wall.

It was always slow, always languid and teasing like drawn out worship, when they touched each other. Blaine let his breath ghost over skin hotly; let his tongue trace patterns over muscle and lace, his body thrumming with desire and heat whenever he slipped down between Frank’s thighs. He was alive, here, he knew who he was, knew what he could do – and every sound that Frank gave him was affirmation. It crept up his spine, sunk into his bones; the sounds that were just for him. _Because_ of him.

He bent Frank over a cinema seat that night, tongue sliding inside of him as he pawed at soft red fabric and screamed out Blaine’s name over and over, begging and pleading for him to keep going, don’t stop. _Please don’t ever stop._

Blaine did as he was told this time, wet pink tongue slipping in and out of Frank’s body as he massaged fingers into the muscle of his ass, stroking down his thighs and grunting desperately against the soft skin. Blaine wanted to bury his mouth there forever, feel the tight ring of muscle against his tongue until he couldn’t breathe anymore.

By the time Frank came, moaning obscenely and loud enough to echo through the theatre, Blaine’s arms were braced against his pale hips and holding him down. He didn’t stop for a moment, tongue working him through it, dropping to suck gently on each of his balls and drag a wet stripe over his perineum before he went back to stroking him open with his mouth.

Frank keened, struggling and thrashing briefly before his body went lax and he lay there, taking it. With every sweep of Blaine’s tongue and press of his lips, muffled incoherent sounds poured from Frank’s mouth and ricocheted off the theatre walls.

When Frank came a second time, Blaine joined him, draping his body over Frank’s frame and clinging tight as they both shuddered and shook.

When they began to come down from the dizzying haze, Frank cast a glance over his shoulder, scarlet lips curled at the side in a weak smile. “And who told you that you could get away with that?”

Blaine laughed, pressing his mouth lightly across Frank’s shoulder to the top of his spine. “Someone told me,” he said between kisses, “that I should start doing what _I_ want.”

Frank laughed breathlessly against the seat fabric, warm and sated under Blaine’s weight. 

After a moment he sighed blissfully, closing his eyes. 

“Well, then, let me be the first to say,” he murmured. “You’re an excellent listener.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The line "Hey Dick, have you ever been a quitter?" and the subsequent piece of dialogue from Blaine are direct call/answer callbacks from the Audience Participation show. Majors is the surname of Blaine's character, Brad, from the movie.

He’d left the theatre that night with a giddy smile on his face and Frank’s number in his phone, already texting by the time he reached corner.

> _I wish you’d come home with me._

With a quick glance down the street, he crossed it, scrunching his nose up in delight as his text tone beeped. He thumbed over the screen.

> **I almost did.**

Blaine dragged his teeth over his lower lip, unable to keep from grinning widely.

> _Not too late. I’m not even a block away._

He waited, hovering on the spot for a moment before he took two steps backwards. His phone trilled again, and as he read he could hear the sultry tone in Frank’s voice through the screen.

> **Goodnight, Mr. Majors. Sweet dreams.**

Rolling his eyes fondly, he sent off a quick _goodnight_ and pocketed his phone, striding off in the direction of home. The breeze felt incredible on his damp skin, and he wondered absently why he still felt so overheated, even in the chill of the early morning dark.

His night was spent tossing and turning in bed, too hot, and too cold, and forever uncomfortable under blankets and sheets alike. After another cool shower he collapsed with a groan, replaying daydreams of Frank’s taste on his tongue. 

By Sunday morning, he knew that what he’d seen in the bathroom mirror that night wasn’t a trick of the light. He was sick. 

Too many weeks spent working and writing papers and dancing under spotlights, too many lectures bracketed by racing to the office or the theatre, or back home again, and his body was wilting under the strain.

He made it to the café Monday morning, just barely, and only in time to watch the silhouette of Kurt through the window, almost blocked out by the giant figure he’d seen on the street the week before. _The boyfriend._

Turning away from the door, he let it drift shut as he shuffled away, his head downcast. The office wasn’t far, he reminded himself; he could start work early. 

_Because photocopying briefs for hours on end **always** takes your mind off Kurt,_ his inner voice goaded sarcastically.

He missed work on Thursday, clinging to his bedframe and heaving over the side as his phone rang again and again. He groaned around the invisible razorblades in his throat while his hand searched blindly for the receiver.

“Hello?”

“Oh, _sweetheart_ ,” his mother’s voice sighed down the line, “you sound awful.”

He mumbled in agreement. “I’m not as bad as I sound, I’ll be fine.”

“You push yourself too hard,” she insisted. “School and the internship and the… other thing.”

Blaine swallowed again and flinched at the pain, his mind reeling. What other thing? How did she know?

“Your father wants to speak to you,” she said gravely.

The words felt like ice water running through his veins. He shifted in discomfort at the sweat pooling in the small of his back, and rolled over to bury his face in his free hand as the crackle and bump down the phone line let him know it was changing speakers.

“Blaine,” his father’s voice came through like a warning: cold, and controlled. “I spoke to the partners today.”

“Yes, sir?”

“They’ve made it clear to me that your attitude has been,” a huff of breath, “ _sub par_ of late, and now I’m hearing about some show?”

“I don’t-”

“ _Don’t_ lie to me. Mrs. Lester happens to own the Kismet Theatre, she told your mother everything, and in front of her friends no less. What you’ve put your mother through with this … this … _foul_ little play. The _embarrassment_!”

Blaine rubbed a hand over his eyes roughly, pressing fingertips against the building pressure at the bridge of his nose.

“I thought you’d grown out of this stupid singing nonsense,” he went on. “Clearly, I was thinking too highly of you.”

He fought the sting of moisture gathering behind his eyes. The dryness in his mouth was bordering on unbearable, and he swallowed against it, almost choking. “Yes, sir.”

“You’re going to quit,” his father instructed calmly. “Then, I will smooth things over with the partners, and your mother can feel relatively unashamed among her peers.”

“Yes, sir,” he answered in his trained monotone.

There was a pause, and then finally the strained silence broke again with another agitated huff. “ _Quit_ , Blaine. Stop wasting your life.” 

The phone cut off.

Blaine sighed, burying his face in his pillow. In the back of his head, a chorus of audience voices called out in unison: _Hey Dick, have you ever been a quitter?_

“I have never been a quitter,” he mumbled aloud.

_What the fuck am I going to do now?_

He dozed in an out of consciousness for the rest of the day, and on into the next, barely making it to his mid-morning lecture on time. After his afternoon trip to the office he made it back just long enough to change and find his costume bag, racing down to the theater with his head pounding and his breath coming shallow from burning lungs.

The look on Janet’s face when she saw him told him everything he didn’t want to know.

“Holy fuck, where’s the zombie that bit you?” she shouted.

He hissed under his breath, gesturing for her to keep it down. “I’m fine, it’s just a bug,” he croaked, but she was already in his space, fingers on his forehead.

“You’re burning up, jesus, Brad – go home!”

With a defiant shake of his head, he waved his bag at her. “I’ll be fine, I just-”

“Whoa, Brad, you look terrible!” Trixie stopped in her tracks as she caught sight of him on her way past. She wheeled around and moved closer, close enough to see the sheen of sweat on his face. “Oh, honey, go home.”

“Please just let me do this show?” he implored her. “I’ll be alright, it’s just a cold.”

“It’s the flu, at least,” she shot back. “And you’re too sick. So go home, we can work one man short this week.”

“Trix fills in,” Janet told him with a nod. “She makes an adorable Brad, I will say. Though, not as adorable as you, of course. And her ass isn’t quite as nice. Although, that’s not saying anything against Trix, your ass is just _incomparable_.”

“Jan,” Trixie warned fondly. “Filter.”

“Right.”

“Please, just tonight,” he pleaded. 

“It’s not that important,” Trix said soothingly, lifting both hands. “You need fluids and rest, so you can come back next week.”

_There is no next week._

His heart ached in his chest at the thought, and he dropped his bag, resting both hands on her upper arms and squeezing gently as they locked eyes. “ _Please_ , Kim. Just let me do this show.”

She straightened at the sound of her real name, concern etched into her features as he stared her down, eyes silently begging.

“Fine,” she said at last. “Just don’t die on stage.”

With a sigh of relief he managed a sad smile, scooping up his bag and trying to train the emotion off his face.

He got changed in the bathroom stall. It was a routine he usually saved for after the show, generally content to get into costume along with the others in the side-stage as a pre-show ritual. But this time, he wanted to avoid any more concerned looks, or orders to abandon what could easily be the last good thing he ever felt.

Halfway through pulling on his shirt his body slumped in defeat, burning and sweating and spinning with dizziness. He leaned heavily against the tile wall, fighting back tears. _It’s not fair. It’s not fucking fair._

Breathing slowly, he tried to calm his heart and the pounding in his head. He pressed both hands to his chest, and stilled at the memory of standing in front of the mirror, bathed in red lip prints. 

_Frank._

Pulling himself upright, he dragged on the rest of the costume as fast as his aching, weary limbs could manage. He could do this. This was his, one more time.

The music had begun already, and he staggered out and pushed through the curtain, content to linger at the back under shadows until his cue. The less people saw him before he was out there, the better.

It didn’t take long for Frank to spot him, and those beautiful blue eyes lit up in the dark, a smile curling his stunning red lips. Blaine’s heart thumped heavy in his chest at the sight, and he smiled back weakly, pushing his empty costume glasses up his nose with a limp hand.

Frank’s smile quickly faded into concern, and lines of worry creased the makeup around his eyes.

“Where’s Brads?” Madge hissed. 

He jerked forward, realising he’d almost missed his cue and stumbling behind Janet up the stairs.

Every moment on stage felt like he was under tepid water, like gravity was so much stronger than he remembered. His mouth would barely cooperate as he tried to shape it around the words.

By the time they reached _Floorshow_ , his eyes were drooping, and he barely managed to get up off the ground again after his crawl, stumbling sideways on his feet. The only thing that kept him upright was Janet’s vice grip on his arm.

When the spotlights faded, he felt like he was floating for a moment, and falling again right after that. He was vaguely aware that he’d hit the ground hard, and was blinking up dazedly at the ceiling and the faces hovering above him. Relief washed over him when he recognised the familiar black and grey paint of the side-stage. At least he hadn’t collapsed in front of the screen.

His head swam in a fog, voices around him muffled and warped on the thick and watery air. He felt weightless, and far too heavy all at once.

“We have to,” he heard a woman’s voice, hard-edged and worried and spilling out words like _fever_ and _dangerous_ and _hospital_.

“NO!” he bellowed as loud as he could, trying to lift his arms.

“Wait- Wait! Stop,” that was Frank’s voice, “he said something.”

“Brads? What is it?” That sounded a lot like Madge.

“No hospitals!” Blaine cried, but he couldn’t hear his own sound, drowned under the heat in his head.

“I can’t” … “what he’s saying” was all he caught after that, and he whined pitifully from the floor. 

He suddenly wondered if he was, in fact, on the floor, and how he got there. He felt like he was shouting, but he couldn’t hear his own voice.

“Brad, sweetie.” It was Janet this time, he was sure.

“Hnnh.” He wasn't sure if that sound came from him.

“What did you say about hospitals?”

“No!” He tried to shout again, but this time all he heard was the cracked echo of his own voice, tinny like a call from far away and barely resembling the right words. “No hospitals.”

Was that the ocean he could hear? Why was there water in the theatre?

“—to take him home,” Frank’s voice cut through the roar, book-ended by the sharp percussion of boot heels and zippers, and canvas dragging across a plastic tabletop. 

“But you don’t” … “he lives” … “do you?” _Was that Rocky?_

“… address is in his wallet,” (Frank’s voice again, strained and deeper than before) “It’s alright, he says he doesn’t” … “a hospital, so he’s not going to one.”

“Frankie.” Janet sounded scared.

Suddenly, Blaine felt like he was flying. The anvil of weight flattening his chest was lifting, and there was something cool against the side of his face. His arms ached as his feet found something solid to stand on.

Frank’s voice was soft, and much closer than he expected it to be when he said; “Trust me.”

 _I do_ , Blaine replied, but his mouth didn’t move.

What followed felt a lot like being pulled with a riptide, the cacophony of sound and silence blending together around the sickening rush of motion. He kept realising a moment too late that there were new voices, new noises – taxi sounds and car horns honking in his ears and in the distance, doors slamming and swinging open, the clatter of shoes being cast aside on tile. 

The world focused and unfocused again in rapid succession. By the time he was aware that he was nauseous he was already throwing up over a porcelain bowl, clutching the sides desperately, his body shaking from the force.

The warm hands on his back anchored him to the world as everything twisted in circles around his head. Both hands stroked soothingly in circles, sliding over his shoulders, running through his hair and calming the tremors to a standstill each time.

Cool liquid rushed over his lips, and again, and he choked down as much as he could manage, eyes blurred and watery under the too-bright light of his bathroom. 

His bathroom? Blaine blinked drowsily. _When did I get home?_

When he came back to himself this time he was in his bed, feeling damp all over and panting. A pathetic, tortured whine escaped him, and in an instant the two hands were on him again, soft fingers brushing over his cheeks and sweeping back his wet curls. 

It took him a moment to recall that he lived alone.

His eyes widened, fighting the strain and sting of the glare to look up at the figure hovering above. All he could make out was a firm body covered in a grey henley shirt, sleeves pushed up both arms and outlined by golden light from behind. The world unfocused again, colours bleeding together as his eyes watered anew, and he tried to look up higher. His breath drew in sharply.

_Kurt._

“You’re here,” he mumbled.

Kurt smiled softly at him, cool fingers ghosting over his face.

Blaine swallowed, flinching at the needle-sharp tear in his throat. He grunted, trying to open his eyes again. _Kurt. You’re here._

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered over dry lips, feeling like his whole body was smiling despite the dizziness. 

Kurt’s face softened, his mouth falling open slightly at Blaine’s words.

“I don’t,” Blaine tried again, but the tickle against his throat sent a round of violent coughs up from his chest, racking his entire frame. Something stayed heavy on his arms, keeping him steady and stopping him from curling in on himself completely. When he settled back again, there was a wash of cool moisture over his forehead.

“I can’t b… believe you’re here,” Blaine croaked, his vision swimming as he tried to make out the outline of Kurt’s face. “I didn’t,” he breathed, his brain cluttered and fogged, “I didn’t think you knew … who I was. You don’t… you don’t even … know my name.”

The hands on his face stopped still for a long moment, lingering and trembling slightly before they disappeared completely. 

There was a sound like trickling water near his head, and he blinked blearily, trying to focus his eyes on Kurt’s face – but it was gone. 

_Of course it's gone. You're dreaming. You have a fever._

His body clenched suddenly at a flare of pain in his chest, burning inside his ribcage. A broken and agonised sound made its way out of him, and he tried to draw himself in tight against the gurgling lukewarm weight building in his lungs.

Something pressed against him from behind, the bed dipping down either side of him in turn, and he rocked helplessly with the movement. Soon he was being drawn back, and a strange sensation washed over him. There was something solid either side of his legs, and all the way up his back, cradling him gently and engulfing him in warmth.

It wasn’t the sickly, sweat-damp, uncomfortable heat of heavy blankets this time; it was different. It was soothing, and still moving, real and soft all around him, wrapping him up tight. He relaxed bonelessly back against it, letting his head roll limply and breathing deep the beautiful smell of fresh, wet shampoo.

“I’m dreaming,” Blaine thought, but he could hear himself speaking.

Hands stroked lightly up and down his arms, across his chest, lulling him slowly into sleep. He heard a shaky voice, shushing him softly. 

_You’re dreaming,_ his brain told him again. _He’s not here. He has a boyfriend. He doesn’t even know you exist._

“Even if,” he tried to say, but pain rose up inside him again. He clenched his teeth and whimpered against it, and the hands on him rubbed in slow circles down his chest and stomach, desperate to ease his pain. 

“Even if you’re not real,” he tried again, “I’m so… glad you’re here.”

He heard a strange sound, like a hiss or a sniffing noise coming from far away, but it was forgotten in an instant as absolute exhaustion began to seep in. He felt perfectly weightless, curled and warm against the dream beneath him.

“I love you,” Blaine said.

Soft lips pressed to his temple, soothing and gentle. Something warm and wet tickled his cheek, and it lifted him out of his near-sleep for a moment. It felt like drops of water, racing down his skin.

He opened his mouth to ask if it was raining, but the thought faded out with the light as unconsciousness dragged him down into the dark.


	8. Chapter 8

He only woke again for a moment in the grey pre-dawn light, stirring as his body lowered down onto soft bedding. The warmth behind him disappeared, but he barely registered the loss as his head rolled back against his pillow.

Light faded in and out, and his entire frame felt weightless again, unburdened by the pressure that had built all week his lungs. The air was cool and crisp around his head, and the burning under his skin was gone at last.

There was something warm and gentle pressing on his lips briefly, just a brush of sensation across his mouth. A voice in his head or in his ears, so much softer than his own, said _goodbye._

When he woke up properly, early afternoon sun was bleeding through the windows in streaks, painting his bedroom walls a brighter shade. He sighed sleepily and stretched, uncurling like a cat and listening to the pops and clicks of his body as he moved.

Conscious thought rolled through the remnants of his fast-fading dreams, and he struggled to recall the night before. He remembered racing to the theatre, the sweat dripping down his neck and into his shirt, the ache in his bones from his illness. He knew he’d spoken to Jan and Trix, and that he’d begged them to let him go on. The rest of the night remained a dappled mass, skirting on the periphery of his thoughts.

_What the hell happened?_

On cue his phone trilled from the bedside, and he groaned as he scooted over gingerly to retrieve it. He rubbed the heel of his hand into his eye as he answered; “Hello?”

“Glad you’re still in the land of the living,” Trix said. “Just wanted to check up and make sure you’re okay.”

Blaine swallowed against his parched and sore throat, searching his room for answers. “Wh- what happened?”

“You don’t remember?”

He shook his head. “No, last thing… last thing I remember I was talking to you before the show. What day is it?”

“Saturday,” she answered. “Jeez, kiddo. That was a crazy fever. You collapsed.”

“On _stage_?” Blaine asked, suddenly very much awake and completely horrified.

She laughed. “No, no, you made it backstage. You got through the show. Like a train wreck, but you got through, and then you did a nosedive down the stairs.”

Blaine grunted miserably. “Oh god.”

“Hey, you’re the one that begged to go on,” she said. “Masochistic bastard.”

“How did I get home?”

“Frankie,” she replied. “He got your address from your wallet and practically carried you out of here himself.”

A smile lifted Blaine’s mouth, and he drew a quick breath in surprise. Something in his chest flushed warm, and the sensation swept over him, prickling his skin.

“I’m gonna miss that boy,” she sighed.

His smile fell. “Wh- what? Frank’s gone?”

“No, no! Just for a few weeks. His brother was in town, and Frankie went back home with him for a while. Said he needed to figure some things out,” she explained.

“Oh.” A hollow feeling tugged inside him, sinking over the quickening of his heart. He swallowed again, trying to wet his throat.

“Don’t worry!” she said quickly. “We can fill for two weeks, it’s not that long. I’d be fucked if he was gone for good, but short-term is manageable.”

“Good,” he said with a croak. “That’s… I’m glad.”

Any ability to form actual sentences fled from him the moment he remembered his father’s phone call. _Oh god._

He had to tell her. He had to say it, or she’d expect him Friday night. But Frank was gone, and if Blaine bailed on her now …

“Alright, sweetie, well you get some bed rest and keep your fluids up,” she went on. “Take care of yourself, and I’ll see you next week.”

“Y-yeah,” he stammered out, words pooling on his tongue and sticking fast. _I have to quit, I can’t be there this Friday, I’m so sorry._

“Bye,” was all he caught before the click-thump of the phone hanging up.

He spent the next hour throwing up over the toilet basin, clutching the sides and shaking. He cursed himself silently. If only he’d gotten the words out, it’d be over now.

No matter what happened with his next call, he knew it wouldn’t make a difference. He was a disappointment. Just like he’d always been.

Staggering back to his bed with a glass of water, he placed it on the bedside table and flopped gracelessly onto the mattress, eyes squeezed shut tight.

_What am I going to do?_

Out of nowhere he thought of Kurt: beautiful, graceful, perfect Kurt. He thought of the cuff on his wrist, the sweep of his stunning brown hair, and the outline of his shoulders against sunlight. He thought of the boyfriend; of those (stupid) long arms wrapped around Kurt’s back, and that (stupid) smiling face tucked over his shoulder.

He thought of the office, and the internship, and how badly he wanted to take a nine iron to the photocopier. By the time his thoughts had wandered to school and his father and his future, the knot in his chest had built like a fist around his ribcage, squeezing slowly.

Trying to breathe, he swept his tongue across dry lips, searching for anything to focus on that didn’t add to the clench inside.

_Frank._

His eyes opened, bright and watery, and he reached for his phone.

Frank would know what to do. Or at least, he’d understand. He would listen. Somehow, Frank always knew the right thing to say.

Blaine realised all at once just how badly he needed to hear his voice again.

When the first text message went unanswered, he waited another five minutes, and sent a second. By the third text message ( _Is it weird if I call you?_ ) he’d already decided on calling, and sent a fourth ( _I’m going to call you_ ).

After the second time the phone rang out, the squeeze around his ribs was unbearable.

When evening crept in through the windows, he was lying on his stomach, head twisted to the side to stare at his unmoving cell. It lay flat on the never-used second pillow on his bed like a tiny sigil, waiting for nothing in particular. Pretending it was holding someone’s place.

With a heavy sigh, he reached for it, dialling one more time.

He jolted when the phone picked up after two rings.

“Hello?”

The voice was unfamiliar, and sounded like it was pushing out from around a mouthful of food. It was also male.

_Oh._

“Oh,” he said. “I – um, is-” he froze when he realised he didn’t actually know Frank’s real name.

It didn’t matter for long, because Frank’s voice was clear in the background. _“Finn, why are you answering my phone?”_

The mouthful voice grunted and garbled out an apology that sounded like it could have been _“oh, sorry dude, we have the same phone”_ , and a round of shuffling static came down the line before a soft breath.

“Who’s this?”

“Hey,” Blaine croaked, his body easing instantly at the sound of Frank’s voice.

There was a pause.

“Blaine,” Frank said hesitantly, almost like he was afraid to.

“I tried to call you earlier,” Blaine began, keeping his tone light. “I figured you were busy but I just wanted to say-”

“It’s okay, Blaine, you don’t have to,” Frank cut him off. “I get it.”

“Get… what?” Blaine asked, confused.

Frank didn’t answer at first. Then, carefully: “Why are you calling?”

“Trix told me that you got me home, last night,” Blaine explained, rolling over to rest on his back. “I just wanted to thank you.” 

“Trix told you?”

“Yeah,” he said with a short laugh, rubbing a hand over his brow. “I don’t remember anything after the pre-show, she called this morning to let me know what happened, and to check up on me.”

“Oh,” Frank said, his voice a little higher than normal.

Another long pause followed, and Blaine smiled to himself. “You didn’t have to do that, I mean, I can only imagine what a mess I was,” he coughed. “I _am_. But I … I’m just… grateful.”

The line was still quiet.

“And I’m so glad it was you,” he added.

Frank sighed, and Blaine held his breath for a moment, wondering if it was pain he heard or sadness.

“Are you alright? Trix said you went back home for a few weeks. I don’t want to pry, I mean I don’t know what our rules are for this kind of thing, outside of the show.” He searched his ceiling as he spoke. “But I was hoping there weren’t any.”

“Any…?”

“Rules,” he clarified, letting his eyes drift closed. “I miss you. And I know that’s ridiculous because I don’t see you between Fridays anyway, but just knowing you’re not going to be there, be here, for weeks; just knowing that I’m _going_ to miss you makes me miss you now. Does … does that make any sense?”

Frank let out a shaky breath. “It does.”

Blaine smiled, nuzzling against his phone as he settled into the pillow.

“You really don’t remember anything from last night?” Frank asked warily.

Peering across the room through narrowed eyes, Blaine tried to recall anything past his talk with the girls. “No,” he sighed. “Nothing at all. Oh god, what did I do? Did I throw up on you? I’m so sorry.”

Frank laughed, and Blaine felt his heart race at the sound. It was musical and soft, and familiar in a way Blaine couldn’t quite put his finger on.

“No, you didn’t, you were fine,” Frank told him. “I…” he took a deep breath, “I wasn’t there for long. Your fever broke and I had to get home.”

Blaine stared at the furniture of his bedroom, the lines of his doorframe and the living room beyond. “It’s so strange…”

“What is?”

“You were here,” Blaine answered with a smile. “You were in this room. I’ve only ever seen you at the show, but you … you were actually here last night. You walked through that door, and stood in my living room,”

“And sat on your bathroom tiles,” Frank added mockingly.

Blaine laughed. “And sat on my bathroom tiles, oh god I’m sorry. And you probably walked across my bedroom. And you lay down…” he stopped talking, fingers ghosting over the blanket beside him.

“Lay down?”

“On this bed,” he breathed. “Did you…?”

It took Frank a moment to answer. “Yes.”

Blaine wet his lips, head lolling to the side as he breathed in the scent of his pillow soundlessly. “You were here.”

“I was,” Frank confirmed. “And you keep a stunningly organised apartment. I approve. Although I am worried that you have a Stepford wife you haven’t told me about.”

After a bark of laughter, Blaine coughed brutally for a long time, holding the phone away from his face until it stopped. “Sorry,” he wheezed, pulling the phone back. “But, no. No wife. I guess I just like order, that’s all.”

Another voice bellowed loudly down the line, clear enough to make out but far enough away from the phone to not blow out his eardrum. _“He’s still on the phone!”_

He heard the cell muffle against something, and Frank’s voice bleeding through. _“Finn! Inside voice!”_

 _“Sorry.”_ There he was again, the man who answered his call in the first place. _“Wait, that’s not the lawyer guy is it? The one you won’t stop talking about? He’s a dick for saying-”_

_“FINN!”_

_“Fine.”_ The voice was fading like he was moving away, punctuated by the thump of furniture shifting on wooden floors. _“Mom wants you to help with her outfit for tomorrow night when you’re done. If that’s cool.”_

 _“I’ll be up soon.”_ Frank’s voice again.

A rustle of sound told him Frank had lifted the phone. Not that his efforts had done much to obscure their conversation.

“I’m back, sorry,” he said gently.

“Did that guy just call me a dick?” Blaine asked, amused.

“Oh god, you heard that? Blaine, I’m – it’s not what you think, Finn is… is…” he struggled briefly, making little noises around words he couldn’t find. “Well, Finn isn’t exactly the brightest crayon in the box, he … misinterpreted.”

“That you can’t stop talking about me?” Blaine teased, grinning.

“ _Ohhh_ my god,” Frank groaned.

Blaine’s grin spread impossibly wider. If he concentrated he could almost see Frank at that moment; face probably buried in his hand, shoulders tipped forward.

“Hey, wait,” he said, confusion dancing over his features. “How did you know I work at a law firm?”

His question met with a long silence before Frank’s voice broke through. “I – I saw,” he said shakily, “on your board, the letterhead from Harper & Veil. Internship?”

Blaine’s eyes flicked up to his pin-up board, and there it was, dangling haphazardly in the corner. “Oh, right,” he said softly. “Yeah.”

Frank’s voice dropped this time to a soft and serious tone. “Sorry, if it makes you uncomfortable. Me knowing.”

“No,” Blaine answered quickly. “No, not at all. I mean, I know things about you now, so-” 

“Like what?”

He didn’t get the chance to answer before Finn’s voice piped up in the background again. _“Dude, are you gonna eat that?”_

“Finn!”

Grinning, Blaine stroked a hand across his stomach. “Like you have a human vacuum named Finn.”

“Touche,” Frank sighed.

“So that’s your brother,” Blaine said.

“That’s my brother,” Frank echoed, exasperated. “I’m so sorry.”

Blaine laughed.

“You know what?” Frank countered after a beat. “I’m not. I’m not sorry. I will not be held responsible for acts of Finn Hudson.”

This time Blaine’s laugh ended in another coughing fit, and he groaned softly once it finished.

“Ouch,” Frank added sympathetically.

“Mmm.” Blaine agreed as he shifted on the bed. “So.”

“So?”

“Hudson, is it?” Blaine was grinning, rubbing his hand across his aching chest as he wondered aloud, and mostly to himself: “Frank Hudson? No. That doesn’t sound like you. Mike Hudson? Not a Mike, no. James Hudson is nice. Alexander Hudson sounds like a movie star, I can see that on you.”

“I feel like we should be in a boat with various birds and fish singing harmonies at us right now,” Frank joked. “Tell me if a crab starts whispering in your ear.”

“I just like to know where I need to make space in my address book,” Blaine said mockingly. “I am _very_ organised, you know.”

“You think you’re so clever,” Frank purred, and Blaine could hear his smile down the phone.

He stopped and held his breath as he listened, imagining those stunning eyes looking back at him, bright with amusement.

“Your last name isn’t Hudson, is it?”

“Nope.”

“Damn,” Blaine cursed, his tone still playful.

“Nice try,” he said. “Finn’s my step-brother.”

“Ah.” Blaine closed his eyes, tipping his head back and relaxing again. “You could just tell me your name, you know.”

“Where’s the fun in that? I need something to torture you with every Friday night,” Frank teased.

That familiar hollow feeling clawed at the base of Blaine’s throat, and he knew he had to say it now, or not at all.

“I can’t… do the show anymore,” he almost whispered.

He heard a sound like Frank had put something down, and the reply was calm, but uneven. “What do you mean, you can’t do the show?”

Blaine sighed, his breath rasping painfully on the outgoing air. “My father…”

“What about him?”

“I have to quit the show,” he choked out. “It's ... it's My family, I can’t … they found out. And with school and the internship, all of it, it’s too much. I can’t do it all.”

“Who told you that?”

“You don’t understand, please,” Blaine begged quietly, bracing for disappointment in Frank’s voice. _Not you, please. Anybody but you._ “It’s my father, I have to-”

“Can I tell you a secret, Blaine?”

He hesitated for a moment, taken off guard. “Yeah.”

“You don’t _have_ to do anything you don’t want to do,” he said simply. “Ever.”

Blaine let go of the breath he was holding, feeling it hiss raggedly through the air.

There was a grinding sound down the line, wooden furniture across floorboards and what could easily have been a chair setting down. Frank huffed for a moment into the phone as he sat, and seemed to settle. “Talk to me,” he instructed. And then softly; “I have all night, if that's what it takes.”

Blaine wet his lips again, sinking down into himself and finding the right words to tell the whole story.

As he started, he felt the world bleed away from him, words pouring out before he could think about what he was saying, or how much he was saying. He talked about his parents, his father, about performing and the life he’d once led at Dalton, the days when he was happy. 

He talked about that day in the front room, the strict guidelines his father had put down about his future and his career. He talked about law school, the internship, and how he’d slowly forgotten his own voice.

“And that’s why I have to quit,” he said at last. “I can’t destroy what he’s built for me.”

“Does it make you happy?” Frank’s voice was soft and soothing, sliding down the phone like cool water after the desert of his life-story.

“Wh- what?”

“Being a law student sure as hell doesn’t make you happy. Being an intern doesn’t either. If it did, you wouldn’t have called Kim in the first place, to take an unpaid role that steals away your Friday nights,” Frank deduced, his voice clear and even. “You came looking for something. Did you find it?”

Stunned, Blaine closed his mouth and tried to wrap his head around what Frank was asking. 

“No,” he breathed, barely making a sound.

“Law school. The internship. They don’t make you happy.”

“No,” he repeated, this time a little louder.

“Does performing?”

He tried to swallow around the lump in his throat. It was the first time he ever admitted it out loud. “ _Yes_.”

Frank let out a gentle, relieved sigh.

“I have to talk to my father,” Blaine surmised aloud.

"Yes, you do," Frank agreed, “and I have to go help my step-mother with her ensemble," he added reluctantly.

“Oh … Right. Sorry.” He was muttering and mumbling over the words before his brain could stop them, taken by surprise and still reeling from the terror at the idea of speaking to his parents. “I shouldn’t have talked so long, god, I’m sorry.”

“I’ll be half an hour,” Frank said suddenly. “Call me back in half an hour.”

“A- are you sure?”

“Of course I am,” Frank said without missing a beat.

Blaine smiled weakly. “I can do that. And – thank you. I mean-” His gaze fell on his pocket-watch, sitting on his dresser, holding that one slip of paper hostage. “Sometimes… sometimes we forget who we really are, and I just needed to be reminded. Of that.”

There was silence on the other end of the line, and he wondered if Frank had already hung up.

His voice finally came through on a shaky breath. “What did you just say?”

Blaine blinked, confused. “Just … thank you. For reminding me.”

“Oh,” Frank said lightly. “You didn’t need me for that.”

Blaine closed his eyes, pressing his cell tight against his cheek. “I did. I do,” he said gently. “Need you.”

He heard Frank’s smile again this time, drifting down the phone line on his words; “Then it’s a good thing I’m not going anywhere.”

After he hung up the call, Blaine lay still in bed, pressing the edge of his phone to his lips as his brain churned over Frank’s words again and again. 

Their second call lasted five hours, past midnight. They talked about everything they’d never talked about: life and death and loss, about marriage equality and high school, the strange coincidence of growing up in Ohio. They talked about singing, and the unexpected comfort of corsets, and everything in between. 

He listened to Frank’s voice drop in and out as his weariness began to overtake him, dimming his words down to mumbles.

“You’re falling asleep,” Blaine teased.

“Mmphmm,” was the reply, and Blaine smiled at the sound, listening to Frank’s tiny non-words of denial as they trickled down the phone line with the slow beat of his breathing. 

Blaine closed his eyes, letting it wash over him. He opened his mouth to speak, but sleep dragged him down before he could say his last fleeting conscious thoughts out loud.

_Even when you don’t say anything, I love the sound of your voice._

When he woke on Sunday, he smiled at his cell, still where he’d left it in the middle of the other pillow on his bed. Holding someone’s place.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for more Rocky in this chapter, for those who can't stand the prick. But again, he's only in it briefly, being a tool.

After a week of evening phone calls, talking for hours on end and listening to the soft, soothing tones of Frank’s encouragement, he was ready. His mind was made up. He would go to the show Friday night, against his father’s wishes, and on the weekend he would tell his parents that he wasn’t going to quit.

It took too many days of playing out the what-ifs and the right words in his head, of trying to come up with any other way to have both worlds and keep his parents happy, but in the end he knew it came down to that one piece of him that had been missing since he was a sophomore.

He remembered the day he transferred to Dalton, fresh out of hospital. He remembered the speech his father had given him. _The fight or flight response_ , his father explained, _is what truly defines a man._

That was the day he realised what that one look on his father’s face meant. When his mouth set in a thin line, and his eyes hardened, and his brow creased. It was pure, undiluted disappointment.

That look never really went away, and even now, the thought of it made him shudder. _You can do this,_ the voice inside said calmly. For some reason, it sounded a lot like Frank.

He’d forgotten about the café that week completely, only remembering when Friday came around again and Janet asked him (with a gratuitous overuse of air-quotes) about his crush. 

Blaine stood there, gaping like a fish as he realised he hadn’t thought about Kurt (or the stupid boyfriend) all week.

“Well, that’s probably a good thing,” Janet said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “It sounded so sweet, but that kind of thing only works out in movies.”

Blaine had just nodded along until she said; “I mean, do you really think someone could fall in love with a person without even knowing their name?”

He blinked at her, stunned, before a smile made its way across his features. He squeezed the phone in his pocket. “Yes, I do.”

The show wasn’t the same without Frank, but with Kim filling in (and most of the cast, including Blaine, desperately trying not to giggle as she deliberately over-acted the entire piece and groped all of them mercilessly), they managed to make it through. Even with the best part of them missing, it never really felt like work.

Blaine stumbled down the steps, laughing and playfully shoving at his cast-mates once the show had closed for the evening, with one thought lingering on his mind: _One more show, just one more after this, and then he’ll come home._

He looked at the clock, and wondered if it was too late to call.

Riff and Columbia had locked mouths the instant they were backstage, shuffling away to find an old dressing room or closet while everybody catcalled and whistled. Blaine grinned at them and rolled his eyes, but his heart ached at the ghosting memory of garter straps under his fingertips.

“Those two this week?” Jan asked. “Wow, I didn’t see that coming.”

“Everybody’s fucking everybody,” Rocky whined. “Someone needs to be fucking _me_.”

“Why don’t you go fuck yourself,” Madge suggested, batting her eyelashes innocently. “I think that’d make everybody happy.”

Blaine’s jaw clenched, and he forced himself to look away from that sickening thin-lipped smirk before it crept onto Rocky’s face.

“It’s true though,” Jan cut in. “We need to start putting rubbers out or something, everybody sleeps with everybody.”

“Except our Brads,” Madge said sweetly, patting him on the back.

“And Frank,” Blaine added without thinking. 

Madge’s eyes flashed in warning.

“Oh, I doubt that one,” Rocky sneered. “Those lips were _made_ for sucking cock. I bet he looks like a gorgeous little whore on his knees, I bet he _loves_ it.”

“Rocky, shut your herp-ridden mouth,” Janet snapped, coiled and ready to smack him.

Magenta trailed a soothing arm over Janet’s side, capturing her wrist and lowering it slowly as she patted her hair. “Shh, babe, calm down.”

“Frankie’s special!” Janet insisted angrily, still directing her rage at Rocky even as Magenta gathered her in her arms. “Just because he doesn’t sleep around like the rest of us trash,” she glanced up at Madge, “no offence honey-” (“none taken”) “-doesn’t mean you get to talk about him like that!”

Rocky shrugged, backing away with a smirk and both hands up in defence. “Whatever, rug muncher.”

Janet growled as he sauntered away. “I wish she’d just fire that _dick_!”

“Soon,” Madge said darkly. “Two strikes down. One more and he’s out.”

Blaine’s brow lifted. “Two strikes?”

“It’s kind of a secret rule we have here,” she explained. “You’re not supposed to know, nobody is until they’ve been with the company over a year. So you didn’t hear it from me.”

“We can trust Brad,” Janet told her with a teary nod.

Madge smiled, rubbing her arm gently in agreement.

Blaine opened his mouth and closed it for a moment as he began to put the pieces together. “Steve – the last Brad. His third strike was the STI?”

“Exactly,” she confirmed. “Rocky has two. Thank you, by the way. For keeping the note.”

His eyes widened. That’s why he’d wanted it back. “Why didn’t Frank keep it when he found it?”

“He didn’t know about the strikes rule,” Madge said. “He told me about what Rocky did, so I told him about it, and I told him he had to take the note to Trix. If she doesn't see a strike, she needs proof of it.”

Nodding, Blaine felt something ease inside his chest, knowing that much. Just one more strike, and Rocky would be gone. 

The discomfort crept back in again when he remembered his first night, and Frank’s warning about Rocky. What did he call him? _Hands-on?_

Blaine felt the colour drain from his face. “What was Rocky’s first strike?”

Janet and Madge exchanged looks.

“Tell me,” Blaine demanded seriously.

“Trix and I walked in on it,” Madge sighed. “He was getting handsy with Frank, grab-assing. Frank socked him one. They both got a strike, for that.”

“She gave Frank a strike?” Blaine asked in disbelief.

“She had to. Any and all violence, it was the first rule she put down,” Madge added gently, trying to ease him. “One punch gets a strike, but start an all-out brawl and you’re gone right away.” 

Frank had tried to tell him, the night he’d wanted to start a fight over the note. _I’m working on it._

Blaine gasped silently, realisation hitting him in waves. The arm that had curled around his waist, pulling him aside, the way Frank had blocked his view and calmed him down that night. If he’d gone after Rocky, he’d have been kicked out of the show.

Even then, Frank saved him, and kept him from throwing everything away.

After the cast scattered and headed home, Blaine couldn’t stop himself from thinking about it all through the early morning. He lay sleepless in bed, playing over every moment in his mind; the look in those eyes, the way Frank touched him. The fear, when he’d thought Blaine would let slip about what they were doing together backstage…

Sighing heavily, Blaine ran both hands over his face. _God, I’m an idiot._

Of course Frank never fooled around, it protected him, kept him safe. Before Blaine, he was untouchable, with the well-laid invisible barrier of ‘nobody, ever’ keeping Rocky at bay. 

Blaine shuddered to think of what would happen if Rocky ever found out.

 _One more strike,_ he reminded himself, trying to calm his racing heartbeat and the sickening clench in his gut.

He dropped his hands, letting his head roll to the side to stare at the second pillow on his bed. His phone sat in the middle, where it always ended up at night. He smiled sadly to himself, hand dragging over his stomach in the pre-dawn light, gliding over muscle and pressing against his ribs. 

It still felt like a dream, the idea that Frank was in his bed just the week before. He shivered at the images it conjured, drawing up spectres of sensation from the last two months. Breathing slowly, he stroked over his ribcage and closed his eyes, remembering the taste of satin on his tongue, of sweet cherry and soft skin. He felt his arms prickle with goosebumps as he lay daydreaming about the things he wanted to do to those thighs, the way Frank felt under his fingers and the noises he made just for Blaine. 

With a whimper, he lifted his head and let it thump back onto his pillow.

He felt breathless, dizzy with longing and the helpless ache inside. Opening his eyes, he glanced at the display on his alarm clock. _5:23am. Too early to call._

Stuck staring at the ceiling, he tapped out a fidgety beat on his chest with both hands, sighing intermittently.

Out of nowhere he rolled over with a sudden rush, snatching up his phone and flipping to his message screen.

> _I used to think people exaggerated when they wrote songs about missing someone, but now I think I know what they meant._

He deleted the text as soon as he’d typed it out, and buried his forehead in his elbow, wondering why everything in his head suddenly sounded like a bad hallmark card.

With an aggravated sigh, he looked back to the blinking cursor on his screen.

> _I wish you’d stayed that morning._

He hit the backspace just as quickly, grunting curses at himself with every thump of the button.

Absently chewing his bottom lip, he let his eyes lose focus as he drifted tiredly in and out of his own thoughts. Slowly, he typed out another message on his phone, eyelids drooping with exhaustion.

When he woke up it was late afternoon, and he flinched as he rolled in bed, stiff from the awkward position he’d fallen asleep in.

He glanced at his phone, resting in his palm, an un-sent message still typed out and bookended with a flashing cursor.

> _I wish you were here._

Shaking his head at himself, he rolled onto his back and hit _cancel_.

The next time he called, it was Monday.

Blaine had stumbled through his front door and walked around from room to room in a state of absolute numbness, not quite sure what he was looking at. _Call him,_ he kept thinking over and over until finally his hands got the message and fished his phone from his pocket.

He paced his living room, shaking and breathing too quickly, the trill-thump repetition of the phone in his ear drowned out under his own voice repeating; "Oh god, pick up, pick up, pick up-"

“Hey, you,” Frank’s voice came down the line.

“I did it!” Blaine blurted out.

Frank was stunned into silence for a moment. His voice sounded almost frightened. “You… talked to that guy or…?”

“What? No, god no, my father. I talked to-” he rushed on, waving his hand in the air. “I talked to my parents, I did it!

“Oh! Wow, you sound… wh-what happened?”

This time it was Blaine’s turn to pause, and he flopped down gracelessly onto his couch, leaning on his knees as he rocked slightly. “I quit.”

“Blaine, it’s nearly half past eight in the morning and I have no caffeine in my bloodstream, you’re gonna have to be a little more specific.”

“I called him yesterday, like we talked about,” he said on a shaky breath. “I called him and said I had to talk to him, and he penciled me in for a meeting before his work this morning. He actually said those words. He said he’d _pencil me in_. He put me in his fucking organiser.”

“Well, now I can see where you get your Stepford from,” Frank joked. “What happened?”

“I went over and I was, I was…” Blaine could hear the adrenaline-fueled shakes in his tone, the way his voice cracked with emotion over every other word, but he didn’t care. “I didn’t want to go in, but I did, I went inside and I told him how... how I feel. Like we talked about. And I told him I wasn’t quitting the show.”

“And?”

“And I’m not quitting the show,” Blaine babbled, his throat feeling hot and hollow.

“So it went well?”

“No, he disowned me,” Blaine laughed hysterically. 

“Oh my _god_ , Blaine. I’m so sorry.”

“No, you don’t understand,” he said, feeling the tears rush down his cheeks. He buried his face in his free hand, closing his eyes. “I’m _free_.”

There was a pause as he found his breath, tongue darting out to wet his lips and push away the beads of moisture gathered at the corner of his mouth. “I quit. The internship, law school, everything. All of it was,” he let go of a punctured breath, “someone else’s life. His life. Not mine.”

“Blaine,” Frank said very gently.

“I did this,” Blaine croaked, more to himself than anyone else. “I’m free.”

“I can only imagine, after everything you’ve told me, how hard it must have been to walk into that house.” Frank’s tone was genuine, and a little awed.

Blaine let out a wet and empty laugh. “You have no idea.”

“I’m so proud of you.”

His heart froze in his chest, tears rolling down his face rapidly as he let out a tiny sob.

“What is it?”

Blaine cried into his hand, eyes screwed shut tight as he muffled his noises with his palm.

“Blaine, talk to me, please,” Frank begged, sounding worried.

“Nothing, it’s just-” Blaine managed to get out around the heat rising up in his throat. “Nobody’s ever said that to me before.”

There was a long pause before Frank’s voice came through again, raw like he’d never heard it, and firm. “I am.”

After struggling for a moment with his gunfire breaths, Blaine managed to calm down and wipe his face with his sleeve. “I wish you were here,” he said brokenly, eyes falling shut.

“So do I,” Frank said softly. “Just another … week and a half. My old high school Glee club has all but blackmailed me into a reunion performance, but then I’m back home.”

“I know it’s only eleven days,” Blaine said, “but it’s too long.”

He could almost hear Frank’s smile. “You miss me.”

“I miss you,” he echoed, smiling back. “But I thought we’d established that already.”

“It’s always nice to hear,” Frank said playfully. “So, what do you want to do now? Now that you’re free, I mean.”

“I… I don’t know,” Blaine answered, eyes wide. “I hadn’t thought about it. I mean,” he looked around, “I have to move out of my apartment, it’s theirs. I have about… six weeks to find a new one.”

“Riff can help with that, actually,” Frank said. “Just ask him Friday.”

Blaine let a soft smile play at his lips. “Thank you, I will,” he said. “As for the rest, well, I’ll… find a job. Figure out what to do with my life.”

“Best place to start,” Frank said, pausing to sip at what was probably his morning coffee, “is to figure out what makes you happy. Then go find it. So, Blaine, what makes you happy?”

He couldn’t fight the spread of his grin as he lay back on the couch, shifting to get comfortable. His face was sore and stiff with dried tears, but be barely felt it. “Singing,” he said. "Singing makes me happy. And, making … art, I guess. Teaching. Helping people.”

“Uhuh,” Frank said, sipping his drink again. "What else?"

Blaine let his head roll back against the cushions. “You.”

The pause went on too long, and he sat up, spurred by the nervousness building in his chest.

“You can’t say things like that,” Frank almost whispered back.

“Why not?” Blaine asked.

“Because eleven days, that’s why,” he said, sounding breathless.

Blaine smiled again, nuzzling against his phone as he settled back into the couch. “It’s not that long.”

“It’s too long,” Frank replied instantly.

With another wistful sigh, Blaine closed his eyes, listening to the soft pattern of Frank's breathing in the pause. _I could fall asleep to that sound,_ he thought, and his brain quickly reminded him: _you have_.

The idea caught him off guard, surging like electricity under his skin and making him brave, and giddy, and terrified all at once. 

“When you come back,” he said slowly, “the Friday you get back, after the show, can you… I mean. Um. Can we…”

“What?”

Blaine felt his heart lodge in his throat.

“Can we be _us_?”

He caught the sharp hiss of Frank’s gasp down the line and his jaw clenched helplessly, heartbeat pounding in his ears as he waited, holding his breath.

Frank’s voice was high and broken, and just a terrified as Blaine felt:

“Yes.”


	10. Chapter 10

As the week trickled by, all Blaine could think was; _the universe itself was made faster than this._

With Frank’s time taken up by his impromptu high-school Glee club reunion, they’d barely had the chance to speak since Monday morning. By the time Blaine slinked off stage that Friday night, the missing piece of their puzzle felt more like a gaping hole in his chest.

A part of him tried to remember what life was like before this began. Before Kismet, and A-P, and Frank.

Another part of him kept wondering in a panic, _how did this happen so fast?_

He tried to laugh off the absurdity of it, berating himself for being pathetic. Who hurts like this over someone they’ve known for three months? Who the hell sleeps with their phone on their pillow like they expect it to turn into a living, breathing ( _caring, beautiful_ , his brain supplied) man at the stroke of midnight?

No matter how many times he told himself it was ridiculous, it didn’t make him feel any less hollow while he waited for eleven days to go by.

He kept himself busy with work, adjusting to the part-time job Janet (or rather _Stacy_ , he’d discovered) had found him as an office assistant. It was boring, just like the internship, but it was paid, and the people were friendly. And, most importantly, there was music.

The rest of the time he spent applying to performing arts programs, to anything he could find in the city. His father had said it so long ago; _everybody starts on the bottom rung._ Even if he’d never truly shared his father’s discipline, he understood it.

After Madge told him about their upcoming plans (“It’s the big one,” she’d said. “Kim has run this company for exactly one hundred shows, and that’s next week, so in true Rocky Horror tradition we’re bombing her with glitter and getting hammered,”) his heart sank in his chest. It was only his tenth official show with them, but even Kim’s landmark seemed dwarfed by the other events in store for that night.

_Frank._

He’d be home, finally. And Blaine knew they’d be obliged to stay post-show, just for a little while, and celebrate – but all it felt like was more unnecessary time between now and what came after the curtain fall. That moment when he could push Frank down in his bed, unlace the corset with his mouth and his hands, wipe away the make-up, and worship every inch of what lay underneath.

He caught himself daydreaming about it again, breath shallow and sweat gathering on his skin, body aching with arousal. The thought of that moment heated the blood in his veins and made him dizzy with need, and sore with longing.

Every time he thought about it he was lost for hours, swirling around in the eddies of his own subconscious and playing out scenarios on loops. It wasn’t until the following Sunday night, as he’d been pouring over the what-ifs and the maybes yet again, that he spotted the pocket watch on his dresser.

His dopey cloud-nine smile faded away, caught up in the sudden gust of reality.

_Sometimes we forget who we really are._

He’d been reminded at long last of the Blaine he used to be. The one who sang, and danced on stage, the one who smiled because he could. He was on his way back to being himself, again. 

But if it weren’t for _those words_ , if it weren’t for Kurt, he never would have been in that café. He wouldn’t have taken the flier off the board, and called Kim. And met Frank.

He smiled gently as he thumbed over the silver engraving of the metal cover. It was so strange, how things turned out.

Just the thought of Kurt still caught him like a thunderclap, seizing his chest.

For the first time in a long time, it was his mother’s voice that spoke in the back of his mind instead of his father’s. _A fool’s dreams may be dreams, but they still belong to a fool._

He flicked the watch open and unfolded the piece of paper that lay inside. 

Wetting his lips hesitantly, he stared down at it, tracing the curve of his own handwriting with his eyes. 

It wasn’t over; he could feel it pulling inside of him, lingering like a chill. It wouldn’t be over, he realised, until he said his own goodbye.

He decided to go to back, that Monday morning.

Yes, he told himself, he would go back down that street past the law firm, and slip into _Café Destin_ at 8:20am like he always used to. He’d get his medium drip, and take the same old seat, and at 8:27 that morning he’d see Kurt Hummel for the last time. And even if it wasn’t out loud, he would say goodbye.

That’s almost exactly not quite how it happened.

The café was busy that morning, but Kurt’s seat remained empty while Blaine waited and sipped his drink. By 8:30am, he was feeling uneasy, gaze still trailing between the door and the empty chair.

When the clock read a quarter to nine, he swirled the last of his cold coffee in his cup, pinned to the spot and staring.

Kurt never came.

“Did you want anything else, sugar?” the waitress asked, leaning over to try and catch his eye.

“No,” he said softly without looking at her. “Thank you, no.”

She studied him for a moment, brow dipping in sympathy. “I’m sorry he didn’t show,” she said sweetly, wiping down a table.

“Hmm?” Blaine asked, glancing up.

“That man of yours, the one you come in here and stare at and sigh over your coffee,” she teased with a tilt of her shoulder. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed you, Monday mornings, medium drip. He’s beautiful, you know.”

Blaine’s mouth fell open, and he caught himself gaping before he glanced down quickly, blush rising over his cheeks. 

“Sorry, I-” He laughed, embarrassed. “Yes, I imagine he is.”

“The two of you are adorable.” She rearranged the sugar pots, grinning. “The way you keep sneaking glances at each other.”

“Thank you, but- wait, _what_?” Blaine’s head snapped up, his face drawn in shock.

“Sorry, sugar?”

“What did you say? The way we … both of us?”

She laughed lightly. “Oh, yeah. Just a couple of weeks ago, he was staring right back,” she informed him seriously. “You were out that window, lingering in the doorway like you couldn’t make your mind up,” she pointed over to the entrance, “and he was by the counter with that giant friend of his, and he saw you walking away. I swear, I have never seen a man’s face light up like that.”

Blaine swallowed air, jaw hanging slack as he blinked stupidly at her. In that moment he was sure he’d forgotten the entirety of the English language, and remembered, and forgotten again.

“I’ll just… leave you to it, then, love,” she said, spinning on her heel.

He sat still, frozen to the spot, for longer than he’d ever admit. His brain felt too big for his skull, and his eyes kept stinging dry, reminding him to blink again. 

Kurt saw him.

His heartbeat was so loud in his ears it began to sound like war drums.

He saw him, and he lit up – he saw him and his face registered recognition. Kurt saw him. Kurt.

Blaine couldn’t feel his body as he walked away from the café. He didn’t remember paying, but he was sure all the same that he did.

He was numb for the rest of the week.

_How is this happening? How is this even possible?_

By the time Friday crept up, he was running late for everything. His week had slithered away from him, trapped and lingering too long in daydreams. He missed his bus, barely made it to work on time, and when he finally managed to get out he raced to the theatre, already late to help Madge set up for the after party.

He’d put away the ice and was fidgeting with the set dressing when Madge found him on stage, and she rested both hands comfortingly on his shoulders. “You okay, boo? You’re all twitchy.”

“N-no, it’s nothing, it’s nothing.” The words rushed from him too quickly.

She lifted an eyebrow, peering at him in suspicion.

“It’s just,” he said on a shaky breath. “It’s been a weird week.”

“Ah, but all that’s done with now,” she offered reassuringly, sliding both arms around his waist to hug him to her chest. “Frankie’s back tonight. And we’re gonna get wasted, good and proper.”

Blaine tried not to think about how awkward his laugh sounded in reply. 

She pulled back instantly, sensing his sudden shift. “What is it?”

He went to dismiss her again, but she cut him off before he could speak. “Don’t give me that ‘nothing’ bullshit, tell me what the fuck is wrong and why you’re not excited.”

His eyes widened at the anger in her voice, and he shrank back on instinct.

Madge folded her arms expectantly, waiting.

“The guy,” he said timidly, like a small child confessing a sin to their mother. “The one from … where I used to work. It’s him. I just… I think he might actually know who I am.”

“I know about you and Frankie,” she said suddenly.

Blaine’s mouth snapped shut in surprise.

“I figured it out,” she went on, her voice even and smooth. “The night you first went on, afterwards, the way he looked at you. Rocky saw it too, but Frank denied it. But he couldn’t fool me. Look,” she leaned against the table, “you know Frankie never fools around with anybody. He has rules. Rules that keep guys like Rocky off his back.”

“I know,” Blaine said, and she silenced him with a wave of her hand.

“It keeps everybody off his back,” she clarified. “But he broke those rules for you. I didn’t know why, at first. But I figured it out, the more I got to know you, the more I saw what he saw.”

Blaine kept still, barely breathing, unsure of what to say.

She sighed. “You don’t remember the night you collapsed, do you?”

He shook his head, eyes narrowing.

“He took you home, but you were babbling. Crazy feverish,” she explained, sliding onto the table to take a seat. She patted the space next to her, and he closed the gap between them at the invitation, dropping onto the table by her side. “We wanted to take you to hospital, you said no hospitals. Jan wanted to take you anyway, but Frank said no. He took you home. You were throwing up, and you weren’t making sense, and then suddenly, you were.”

“I was?”

“He cleaned you up, and you were talking to him,” she said. Her voice was soft, and her eyes avoided his face. “About this other guy.”

Blaine’s heart stopped. _Oh god._

“You thought it was that guy, taking care of you,” she shrugged, “you told him you loved him. But Frank knew you weren’t talking to him.”

Blaine felt the blood drain from his face. “Oh god,” he repeated aloud. 

“He didn’t tell me much else,” she went on, finally looking at him. “Just that he couldn’t do it anymore. He couldn’t hold on to you while you were holding on to someone else. So he went back home, to figure it out.”

Blaine’s eyes drifted closed, and he let out a trembling gust of air. He was the reason Frank left.

“But then something changed. He called me this week,” she laughed, as if remembering some private joke. “Sounded happy like I’ve never heard him. The two of you keep talking, keep missing each other so much it hurts you both. Do you know what that is, when you miss somebody so much it physically hurts?”

He shook his head, eyes stinging.

She nodded. “You’ll figure that part out soon enough. But you have to understand right now, you honestly have him believing that he’s what you want.”

“He is,” Blaine said instantly, eyes bright and glittering in the stage lights. “I’ve just… I’ve wanted this; this one person, this _perfect_ person that I fell in love with in … in a heartbeat. I’ve wanted him for nine months, and then there’s Frank. And he …” 

Blaine swallowed around the words, lip trembling as he tried to get them out. 

“He _moves_ me. He makes me … He’s real, and he’s here, and he knows who I am, so much of who I am and he still…” he choked for a moment on his words. “But I can’t get this fantasy out of my head. I … I don’t know what to do.”

She tilted her head, considering for a moment, before she shifted on the table and fixed him with a steady gaze. “You need me to Grimsby your ass,” she suggested.

He blinked at her. “What?”

“You ever see _The Little Mermaid_?” she asked.

Blaine scoffed. “Of course.”

“Well, right now? You’re that scene where Prince Eric is sitting on the castle wall, playing his manly pan flute, and he’s staring out over the beach and the ocean. He’s moping, of course, over some back-lit warbling bimbo that he saw for two seconds,” she said, and held up two fingers to emphasise her point. “ _Two seconds_ , and he fell in love. And he’s been pining ever since over this fantasy girl, even though he has this other girl, this real and beautiful girl who cares about him, waiting for him inside.”

Blaine nodded along as she spoke. He knew the scene.

“And then Grimsby, that’s his man servant guy, comes up to him, and he lays it down,” she said matter-of-factly, and Blaine couldn’t help but smile at her inflection.

“So I’m going to say to you, what Grimsby said to him, but I'll paraphrase,” she went on, sliding off the table and turning to meet his gaze with a deadly serious look. “Better than _any_ dream boy is one of flesh and blood. One that’s warm, and caring,” she lifted her fingers to his chin, guiding his head to turn. “And right before your eyes.”

His breath caught in his throat as he saw Frank’s smile for the first time in three weeks. 

“He said you left him voicemails, whenever he couldn’t get to his phone,” she whispered, watching him sadly. “He didn’t tell me what they said, but you should know he kept them. He plays them. He told me,” she brushed her fingers through his hair gently, “… he told me he falls asleep to the sound of your voice.”

Blaine couldn’t tear his eyes away from Frank, even as he listened. From the smile that danced on his features as he chatted with Riff, laughing and tugging at his corset laces as he did them up slowly, to the sharp flash of muscle, flexing in his shoulders as he moved.

“Please don’t hurt him,” she begged quietly.

He finally glanced back at her, eyes shining. “I keep my cell on the pillow next to mine.”

Her gaze trailed up and down his face, mapping the emotion there.

“I keep hoping one morning I’m going to wake up, and it’ll be him.”

She smiled at him gratefully. After a beat her glance lifted again, and he followed her eye-line to watch Frank disappear backstage.

“Excuse me,” he said in a rush, sliding off the table with a grin. She gave him a solid slap on the ass as he turned, racing down the steps and out of sight.


	11. Chapter 11

Blaine burst through the stage curtain and ran across the empty space, closing the gap between them quickly. It was still early, and Frank was the only one there, already mostly dressed with the exception of his boots and fishnets. 

He glanced back at the sound of footsteps, and shrieked with a surprised laugh as Blaine caught his waist, spinning him and pressing him to the wall.

“Blaine!”

Blaine cut him off with a desperate kiss, crashing their mouths together hungrily, his hands cupping possessively along Frank’s jaw. He leaned in to the kiss, sweeping their tongues against each other as he moaned and his entire body shook with the relief of finally being able to touch him again.

He pulled away with a soft wet sound, sucking back on Frank’s lower lip before he rested their foreheads together, eyes closed and panting. “I missed you,” he said in hushed tones, barely loud enough to hear.

“Mmm, I can see that,” Frank laughed, brushing their noses together softly.

Blaine’s eyes opened barely half way as he stared down at Frank’s pink and kiss-swollen mouth. He licked along the line of it, and slid his tongue inside again, hands tightening on Frank’s face and gliding over powdered makeup.

“Mmf! Hey,” Frank said as they pulled apart again. He locked their gazes, concern flashing in his eyes. “Are you alright?”

Blaine shook his head once, all too aware that his fingers were tailing down over Frank’s neck, sliding gently over his shoulders in circles and down both arms. “I – I know about what I said,” he confessed, “the night I was sick.”

Frank’s eyes widened, huge and pale blue, and more beautiful that Blaine had remembered.

“I’m so sorry,” he went on, trying to keep down the hot flash of emotion welling in his throat. “I didn’t know what I was saying.”

Frank smiled sadly at him, long fingers running over the collar of his costume shirt. “It’s alright. I guess. At least I know where your heart is.”

“Was,” Blaine corrected him, unblinking. “Not anymore.”

Frank’s throat trembled as he swallowed, eyes fluttering with shock.

“Come with me?” Blaine pleaded, sliding their hands together and twining their fingers. He pulled back a little, lifting Frank away from the wall. “Please?”

With a hesitant smile tugging at the edges of his mouth, Frank let him guide them down the open corridor to a set of old dressing rooms. He pushed lightly on one of the doors, letting it swing open, and the faint smell of perfume washed over them both.

The room was small, and an empty dresser and basin stood to one side, stained with makeup and tilting on broken drawers. Frank glanced around carefully, taking in the vintage fittings, his fingers still intertwined with Blaine’s as he was lead over to a deep red couch.

Blaine turned against Frank’s body, sliding both hands over his hips very slowly and back again, stroking roughly over satin and settling them with a squeeze.

Eyes drifting closed, Frank sighed in a mixture of bliss and relief. He rocked on his feet as Blaine’s lips brushed against his neck, dancing over a prominent vein to press tiny kisses along his jaw. 

Blaine lingered over his pulse, scraping his teeth carefully down skin and letting his breath whisper coolly over the moisture he left. He felt him shudder under his mouth, and Blaine’s body clenched at the clawing heat building low inside him, fueled with every whisper and plea.

It was slow, passionate and aching, swaying together in the quiet as he mapped Frank’s throat and collar with his mouth, thumbs dragging over his sides and around to the small of his back. He nipped at the soft skin behind Frank’s ear while he slid both hands down together, pushing under the lace and satin and grazing over the firm curves of him, fingers tightening on instinct. Frank gasped, exposing this throat completely as his body arched and he pushed back into Blaine’s palms. 

Blaine drew a sharp breath at the sudden jerk, cupping handfuls of muscle and flesh as he lifted Frank up against his body and felt arms coil around his neck. He was painfully hard, straining against his briefs and desperate for friction, but completely lost in the noises Frank made as he massaged his fingers into warm skin.

He kept going, stroking up and down with his thumbs, never losing his grip as he listened to the sounds above him; the desperate and barely-there punctuated moans that came on every breath.

Frank helplessly jerked his body back into Blaine’s grip over and over again, desperate for more of the exquisite sensation that rippled up his body from simply being held this way, being touched this way, being so perfectly and intimately _owned_.

Blaine's hands flexed with every push, fingers shifting to slide down the center of him. He heard Frank’s cry, felt nails digging into his shoulders as their hips met and slid together, and Blaine groaned brokenly at the perfect friction. He could feel the thick outline of Frank’s cock against his own, pressing hard against satin and straining the fabric, and he kissed a light, quick pattern up the perfect curve of Frank’s neck to whisper in his ear. “Spread your legs.”

Frank did as he was asked, feet shifting out slightly, opening him up for Blaine’s hands to slide lower, move down the crease of him in slow strokes that left Frank keening and writhing in his arms.

Closing his eyes, Blaine buried his face against Frank’s neck and rutted desperately against him, his body clenching tight at every shock of pleasure and every sound.

“Oh _god_ ,” he mouthed against Frank’s throat, lost in the heady rush and the sheer heat pouring off his body.

He traced a long line over his entrance, swirling his finger gently across the puckered flesh. Frank whined above him, hips crashing tightly with Blaine’s in violent jerks. “ _Blaine!_ ” he almost screamed. “Oh god, don’t stop touching me, _please_.”

Blaine coiled himself tighter around his frame, arms taught and fingers gliding over burning, silky skin. He sucked patterns of pink bruises into Frank’s neck around his own moans and whimpers, their bodies sliding to a broken rhythm until they both came, one after the other, crying out and clinging to each other so tightly it bordered on painful.

They cleaned up quickly at the basin, passing tissues back and forth and casting them into the trashcan as they came down slowly, adjusting their costumes and stopping every now and then to reach out and touch each other again.

When Blaine staggered back and collapsed onto the couch he took Frank with him, pulling him down on top. Frank grunted with the sudden fall, laughing tiredly and settling against Blaine’s chest, legs straddling his lap.

Blaine stared at the wall through half-lidded eyes, hands trailing up and down Frank’s spine lovingly over his corset. 

“That was worth coming back to,” Frank teased lightly, head tucked against a shoulder.

With a smile, Blaine shifted and kissed his temple, fingers caressing the angles and curves of him in a slow dance up and down his body.

“We should go,” Frank sighed. “The show must go on, and I need to finish this,” he waved a finger at his face.

“Mmm,” Blaine murmured beneath him. “No. Stay.”

Frank chuckled. “Uhuh, I’m sure that’ll go down well.”

“I like you better without it.”

Sitting up, Frank peered at him quizzically.

“The lipstick,” Blaine clarified, leaning in to press their mouths together gently for a moment. “I like your mouth…” his voice trailed off slightly as he stared, transfixed. “Just the way it is.”

“Oh really?” Frank said, arching a painted eyebrow in amusement.

“Mmm,” Blaine confirmed. “I love your nose,” he said, peppering tiny kisses over Frank’s face between words. “Your jaw, the way you only talk out one side of your mouth sometimes. The colour of your eyes and how I don’t even have a name for it.” He pressed two more tiny kisses to Frank’s mouth, pulling back. “God… the sound of your voice.”

Frank blushed, head tilting down slightly. 

“I want you to come home with me tonight, I want to see all of you.” Blaine’s tone was suddenly reverent, and he began tugging lightly at the corset strings. “I want to be us.”

“You want my name,” Frank said plainly.

“I don’t care about your name,” Blaine replied. “I want _you_.”

Frank gulped quietly as Blaine stared him down, and he fought the urge not to shift and hide every part of himself that felt exposed.

“It’d be nice not to call out the name of your character when I come, though,” Blaine added lightly.

Frank snorted, burying his face in Blaine’s shoulder as the tension diffused in an instant.

He settled down again, arms curled in front of him, captured between their chests as he rested his head. “I have to tell you something,” he said hesitantly.

Blaine felt his spine prickle. “What’s that?”

Frank was quiet for a long time, and Blaine could feel the tension in his body, the shift of muscle under skin. He waited patiently, stroking over his back and hips and sides in slow movements throughout.

“I knew who you were,” Frank whispered. “Before you started the show.”

Blaine took a moment to process, eyes pinching in confusion. “I … how?”

“I’d seen you before,” Frank looked down at his own fingers, smoothing gently over Blaine’s chest. “I wanted to-” He stopped to laugh at himself. “I wanted to say something. Talk to you. But outside of this place I’m not…” his words trailed off.

With a light kiss to his forehead, Blaine squeezed at Frank’s hips reassuringly. “Me neither.”

“It’s like armour,” he went on. “The costume. I’m on that stage, I’m invincible. But out there,” he looked to the door, “I’m just me.”

Blaine’s hand lifted, fingers brushing along the stiff gel at Frank’s hairline while he cradled his head to his chest. “There’s no ‘just’ you,” he told him. “You’re… everything.”

Frank turned, burying his nose in Blaine’s shirt and closing his eyes in frustration. 

“No, I need you to understand,” he said, and lifted his head, meeting Blaine’s eyes. “If we do this. If we’re going to be… more than this, you need to understand that this isn’t me. I’m not Frank.”

“I know,” Blaine said with a smile.

“Do you?”

In the pause, they breathed together, and Blaine wet his lips carefully before he spoke.

“You know I wanted you from the moment I saw you,” he began.

“In costume,” Frank cut him off with an exasperated sigh. “As Frank.”

“Let me finish,” Blaine interrupted with a tiny laugh. “I’ve wanted you from the second I saw you,” he said again. “But now… it hurts. When you’re not here. And I can’t sleep without at least pretending that I can hear your voice…” he trailed his fingers lightly over shoulder blades. “The night that we fell asleep on the phone, and I could hear you breathing. Just… just like you were next to me. That was when I realised I _need_ you. The real you.”

Frank shivered in his arms, lost for words.

“I know how it feels,” Blaine continued. “Outside of this place I never thought, I mean… I spent six months pining over a fantasy. In my wildest dreams, I never imagined someone like you would even look at me twice.”

“I didn’t,” Frank said calmly.

Blaine stopped, stunned.

“I didn’t have to,” he explained. “Once was enough. And I couldn’t look away.”

With a needy whimper Blaine pulled him down into a rough, messy, open-mouthed kiss, their bodies slamming together as Frank’s arms coiled tight around his neck. They rolled against each other, fingers pressing through hair and under fabric, pushing and pulling and grasping to fuse together, to get closer, to feel more.

“ _I love you_ ,” Blaine confessed brokenly as they split apart, still holding Frank tight to his chest. “God I love you so much, I feel like I can’t breathe sometimes.”

Frank was heaving against him, eyes closed as he pressed their foreheads together desperately.

Blaine couldn’t help the sounds coming from him, riding on the ache in his chest. “Please tell me that you love me, too.”

“Well, what do we have here?”

They both jolted and snapped their heads around at the sound of a new voice, loud and nauseating in its familiarity. 

From the now open doorframe, Rocky smirked back at them. “So the whore’s for sale after all.”

Frank’s mouth fell open in shock as Rocky looked him up and down, leering. “Show’s starting in ten, baby,” he said. “Maybe after you can give me some time with that tight little hole of yours.”

Bile rose in Blaine’s throat, and his grip tightened around Frank’s body on instinct for a moment before his hands were being pushed roughly away.

He froze, lost and reeling as Frank clambered off him frantically, shoving hs hands away. Those beautiful blue eyes were darker now, almost grey, glazed and staying low. “We’ll be there in five," Frank said.

With one last sweeping smirk, Rocky disappeared.

“It’s alright,” Blaine said urgently, pulling himself to his feet and reaching out. “We’re together, he can’t-“

“Don’t,” Frank raised a hand, backing up and out of his grasp. He still hadn’t looked at Blaine’s face. “Don’t… touch me.”

Blaine’s mouth fell open, and something in his chest squeezed tight. He drew a shaky breath, trying to keep from reaching out again, trying to understand what had just happened. 

_No. No, please._ “Please,” he begged.

Without another glance, Frank turned, and disappeared out the door.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of RHPS references early in this chapter, but they're easy to tell apart with italics. Warning for a forced kiss (literally only one line) and a reference to a forced kiss, for those triggered by it.

He spent the performance trapped a sickening haze, like everything was happening on the other side of glass, out of reach. Every sound and voice, even his own, was muffled on the air, drowned out with the whistle in his ears and the raw, clawing pain in his chest. 

_“Oh, Rocky!”_ Frank’s voice was flat; perfectly in time, but the tone wasn’t there, that essential cockiness he had to wield, even when he didn’t want to. The heart of him had faded, that undercurrent of seamless confidence that sizzled under his skin in every performance he gave. 

Every performance but this one.

For the first time ever, Blaine watched helplessly as his Frank slipped away.

He closed his eyes in a free moment, remembering the bones in his arms, flexing the muscle, reminding himself in repeating, desperate, silent fires of nerve and trembling sinew that he couldn’t reach out to hold him.

In his chest his heartbeat stuttered, and he tried endlessly to recall a time when he didn’t simply _ache_ for him.

Blaine sang along to the track, letting the callbacks wash over him like old familiar waves, just white noise against the music and the hours that dragged by disguised as minutes.

Every time Rocky opened his mouth, every look and every leer made Blaine shiver with cold, sharp hatred, knuckles white, fists clenching at his sides to the point of pain.

The moment those hands were on Frank, Blaine felt the growl rise in his throat. It shattered quietly as he choked it back down, bubbling with a white-hot rage he’d never experienced before in his life. 

He could feel Frank’s hesitance on every gesture, every line, and he knew how violently his skin would be crawling as he was forced to play up the part. _“In just seven days, (and eight nights,_ the audience goaded them, laughing) _I can make you a man.”_

The Transylvanians’ voices taunted him viciously from side stage, mocking like they knew. _Frank and Rocky, rah-rah-rah._

It took everything in Blaine’s power not to scream.

By the time they reached _Floorshow_ he was struggling to speak his lines, eyes fixed on Rocky even while Columbia sang her piece. A tiny, warm hand slipped into his own and squeezed gently, and he thanked any deity that would listen at that moment for the fact that Jan was beside him.

When the final cheers went up, the roar of the audience felt like a tidal, and he tried not to flinch away from it as he waited for the crash. 

Trixie bowed, accepting flowers and laughing while Riff shouted out the news of the company’s 100th show. _“And here’s to many more.”_

Blaine barely heard them. 

His gaze flicked between Rocky and Frank, and over to the metal stairs, body jerking desperately with the need to run. That creeping, twisting voice in his head reared up again, reminding him – as soon as it was over, he could _run_. He could fly across that stage and down those steps. He could get away from this moment, and everything it meant.

 _The fight or flight response,_ his father had told him, once upon a time, _is what truly defines a man._

He caught himself staring at Frank, at the rise and fall of his chest, the flash of his throat as he breathed; he was trembling, almost imperceptibly, given away by the sheen of sweat on his skin that caught in the spotlight.

Blaine felt calm all at once, simply watching, and he knew in a deafening rush of clarity exactly what Magenta had meant. What it was, when you missed someone so badly you felt the anguish of their absence in your bones, the pain that outweighed the hard-wired instinct of flight.

He closed his eyes.

_Time to stop running._

When he opened them again, the haze washed away, the muffled glass sounds bleeding into the crisp and clear cacophony of the crowd. Frank met his eyes, and held them. 

And Blaine knew.

_I could never say goodbye to you._

As the lights went down he felt the powerful, invisible pull to the side-stage, and the cast clattered down the metal stairs with him in a cramped and frenzied outpour of shouts and screams. Between half of them thumping Trixie on the back and picking her up in congratulations, and the other half already stripping out of costume or bee-lining for the alcohol, Blaine had to duck and side-step too often to get a decent view.

He broke free of the pack of bodies as quickly as he could, stretching and leaning to find Frank’s face in the crowd. Brow knitting tightly in panic, he turned in half-circles, searching desperately and almost tripping over his own feet.

A hand on his arm, gripping tight and tugging him mercilessly towards the bathroom door, had him stumbling in heels and scraping the ground with his knees. He managed to pick himself up, staggering the last few steps as Magenta dragged him through and all but threw him against the tiled wall.

“What the FUCK happened?” she yelled.

He stared at her, eyes wide in shock, and before he had a chance to even ponder how she knew, he noticed the shaking of her hands. _Please don’t hurt him,_ she’d said earlier. 

And she’d just watched Frank all but fall to pieces on stage.

Blaine was breathing too hard, adrenaline firing in his veins as he gestured both hands helplessly in the air. “Rocky,” he growled back, voice tapering into a frustrated whine. “Fucking… Rocky, is what happened.”

Madge froze, searching his face carefully. “What did he do?”

“He walked in on us, he saw…” Blaine tried to steady his breathing. His voice was barely above a terrified whisper; “Frank … he closed off. He told me not to touch him.”

Her face softened instantly, brow gathering in sympathy. “Oh, god.”

“Where is he?” Blaine asked, trying to shift past her. “I have to find him, please tell me he’s still here.”

“He took off the second he got off stage, I think, he and Jan were together. I don’t know – I thought he’d stay, for Trix. But if Rocky-”

“I know.” Blaine’s entire body tensed, skin tightening over muscle and veins as he tugged viciously at the side of his corset, pulling it off and dumping it by the sink. He moved as fast as he could, swinging his usual stall open as he tore down his fishnets and kicked off both heels, slipping his jeans from the door hook and pulling them on frantically.

“Brads.” Her voice was low, full of warning and worry as she watched him. “What are you doing?”

“Getting strike three,” he said darkly as he passed her, heading for the door.

She caught his arm with both hands, tugging back roughly, but he only stopped still. Her eyes widened at the shift; the man she’d dragged into the room with one arm a moment ago was now coiled tight, too strong to move.

“It’s not worth getting kicked out over,” she insisted, her voice almost pleading. “You love it here. Don’t you _dare_ tell me that you don’t, because I see it in your face every time you’re singing on that damn stage. This is _home_ , Brads. This is where we come to be us.”

He was silent, body radiating control.

“He’s not worth it.”

“Yes, he is,” he said calmly.

Madge stared at him, hands still clinging to his bicep. “Please. Rocky’s not worth sacrificing this.”

Blaine met her eyes. “I wasn’t talking about Rocky.”

Her hands slipped away in surprise. Against every instinct, she gave him a quick nod of approval.

He smiled at her gratefully and a little sadly, reaching up to brush his fingers over her cheekbone before he turned. 

“I lost him once,” he told her, pushing the door open. “I’m not going to lose him again.”

On the other side the party was in full swing, plastic cups in every hand and bottles clinking together, playing percussion under the excited chattering buzz. He searched the room for a telltale shock of blond hair, but there was none. His gaze landed on Riff and Columbia by the stage curtain, and he moved over to them quickly with Madge at his heels. 

“Has anybody seen Rocky?”

Riff’s head swivelled on his neck as he looked up, unsteady and glassy-eyed. _Well that didn’t take long,_ Blaine thought.

“Oh, yah,” he said, waving his cup to the corridor entrance. “He went down to the dressing rooms, something about catching up with Frankie.”

Without a word, Blaine tore off in a sprint.

“What’s happening?” Jan called from behind him. “Where’s Brad going?”

Madge pulled her along by the hand, heels clattering across linoleum as they tried to catch up.

It was the third room on the left. The same room, he realised with a sick twinge in his gut, that he and Frank had been in together only hours before.

Suddenly, too many things were happening far too quickly, and it took a moment for his mind to catch up. All the sounds had struck in chorus; Frank’s broken cry, the crash, and the buzz, a strange ticking noise and the thump of a body falling. 

Frank was standing, breathless, his brow set in a dark glare and his hands gripping the dresser behind him. And somehow, there was a twitching, writhing mass of a man on the floor.

Blaine tried to register what he’d just seen and heard:

The door collision had been so loud when he pushed through it, splintering with a sickly crunch from the force of striking the wall. At the same time he’d seen them; seen Frank pressed against the broken dresser with Rocky all but draped on top of him, mouth bruising Frank’s lips painfully as he kept him still with a fistful of his hair.

Blaine flinched at the flash of too-recent memory, mind reeling as he tried to understand. The girls lingered in the doorway behind him, and then there was a third body coming to the door.

“What the hell is going on?” Trix demanded, surveying the room.

Frank glanced over at her, brow set in controlled anger. “He attacked me.” 

Blaine looked back to the shivering mass of Rocky on the floor.

The other noise he’d heard, just after he burst into the room, what was it? Rocky had let go of Frank at the sound of the crashing door, and he’d turned around and then…

Electricity. _Tik tik tik._

Mouth open, Blaine felt the pieces settle into place. 

Frank was waiting for it. He knew it was coming; he even prepared himself. That’s why he’d found Jan after the show.

Blaine watched as Frank held the taser out to Jan, mouthing a silent _thank you._

She winked at him, stepping over the now-still figure on the ground to take the taser with her free hand. With a quick glance down at Rocky, she laughed under her breath and promptly tipped her drink across his face, dropping the cup on his head. “Oops.”

“ _Jan_ ,” Trixie scolded her. 

With a shrug, Jan wrapped her arms around Frank’s waist, snuggling into his side. His mouth twitched into a barely-there smile as he squeezed her shoulder.

“He attacked you?” Trixie repeated seriously, eyeing Frank.

“I saw it,” Blaine said suddenly, coming back to himself. “He … he had him pinned. I saw it.” He let himself look at Frank, hesitant and shell-shocked.

Frank didn’t look back.

“So did I,” Jan piped up. “I saw it.”

“Me too,” Madge added with a firm nod.

Trixie glanced between the three of them and cast one final apologetic look to Frank before she reached out and tapped at Rocky’s head with her boot. “You hear me?”

“Hmmrph,” Rocky said, staring up at her dazedly from under vodka-soaked hair.

She bent over, enunciating carefully. “You’re _fired_ , asshole.”

Madge grinned.

“About the taser,” Frank said slowly, catching Trixie’s eye. “I know about the strikes. I know you have to. It’s okay.”

Studying him for a long beat, Trixie sipped her drink and swallowed. “What taser?”

Frank’s eyes narrowed in confusion.

“I saw no taser,” Madge chimed in.

“Nope,” Jan added. “Me neither. Must be some kind of medical condition. Probably induced by being a raging asshat. He just seized up and fell down.”

“And pissed himself,” Madge added, nodding to Rocky’s damp gold shorts.

“And pissed himself,” Jan concluded with a smile.

Frank glanced between them, lips pressed tightly together in silent gratitude.

“We’ll clean up this mess,” Jan said, nudging at his side. “Go, go on.”

There was a tremor in Frank’s hands as he let go of her, and Blaine watched him carefully, fear and longing coiled tight like twin snakes around his ribcage. 

“I’ll take him home,” he offered quietly.

Without looking up, Frank gave the smallest of nods and side-stepped around Rocky to get to the door.

Blaine followed in silence, barely breathing, voice caught in his throat with his heart.

He stopped when Frank did, two doors distance down the long hall. Without a word, Frank reached out and gathered his hand, leading him into the nearest room.

When they were both inside, Frank let go, keeping his face turned away. “Close the door.”

Blaine did as he was told, clicking the door shut as carefully as he could and leaning against it, waiting.

Frank’s body shook. Just once at first, and then again, and again, as he dissolved into uncontrollable, body shattering tears.

Blaine kept himself still against every instinct. If a heart could scream, he was sure his was.

“I know you- you said-” he managed over broken breaths. “You said you didn’t want me to touch you, but I-“

“ _Blaine_ ,” he begged silently on a sob, and turned just in time to be caught up in Blaine’s arms as they grappled each other desperately and sank to the floor.

Holding him tight to his chest, Blaine pressed fingers into skin, into the gelled lines of his hair, whispering frantic apologies over and over. _I’m sorry. Oh god, I’m so sorry._

“I’m alright,” Frank choked out, “I’ll be okay. It’s just. It’s too much like-”

“Shh.” Blaine pressed his mouth along Frank’s temple in tiny, soothing kisses; promises to make the pain go away, to hold him until he told him to let go.

When the tremors settled and Frank grew still in his arms, Blaine closed his eyes, brushing his cheek across Frank’s forehead and squeezing both arms around his body possessively. “I should have been there.”

“It’s not your fault,” Frank said, his voice wet and higher than before. “I knew it would happen. It worked out the best way it could have.”

“It still happened,” Blaine insisted.

“I …” Frank stopped before he could get the words out, shifting slightly and trying to build himself up to speak.

Blaine waited, hands stroking him soothingly through it.

“It’s not the first time,” Frank began slowly. “When I was in high school, there was this … jock. He used to like to torture me, throw me against lockers, in dumpsters. It went on for years,” he said, and Blaine listened in aching silence.

“When I was eighteen, I thought I was… brave,” he laughed wetly. “I was stronger, I worked out more. I had a plan. But he… he was so much bigger than me.”

Blaine’s eyes closed, and he pressed his mouth against Frank’s skin, already sure of what was coming.

“He held me against the locker when he kissed me. It hurt,” he said evenly, like he was telling any other story. “It’s not supposed to be like that. Your first kiss. It’s not supposed to be stolen.”

With a punctured breath, Blaine trailed his hand gently up and down Frank’s spine, the familiar caress they’d done so many times before, it now felt so intimate and so completely _them_ that it almost took his breath away.

“When Rocky pinned me, I froze,” Frank confessed. “I was in that locker room all over again. I couldn’t stop it then, I couldn’t stop it now.”

“But you did,” Blaine insisted quietly. “You did stop it.”

Frank shook his head against Blaine’s chest. “Not fast enough. All this time I thought I’d changed. That’s … it’s why it’s so easy to be Frank. It’s powerful and safe and,” he let out a breath he’d been holding too long, “it’s freeing. Being somebody else, someone who never got hurt. But underneath all this, I’m just that kid. The one who went home covered in bruises for years while nobody noticed. And nobody ever understood.”

“I do,” Blaine breathed.

Beneath him Frank sniffed gently, pressing his head down into Blaine’s shoulder. “I don’t know if you can.”

Swallowing to wet his raw throat, Blaine shifted on his knees, pulling back so he could at Frank’s face. Eyes that were too bright and too beautiful for tears stared back at him, swollen and stained. 

Blaine bit down on his bottom lip to keep himself from crying. 

“I know … what it’s like,” he said shakily. “When I was fifteen I went to a school dance with another guy. I was out,” he nodded sharply. “He was just a friend, but he was out too, and he agreed to go with me. But … before we got there, these guys showed up and…”

Frank’s eyes widened in realisation.

“I was in hospital for weeks.” Blaine reached down, gathering Frank’s hand in his own gently and guiding it to the side of his head, threading joint fingers through his hair.

Frank gasped softly as he grazed over the scar. It was a long dash of twisted skin, thick enough to tell apart instantly. Blaine let his hand fall away, but Frank didn’t, lingering over the raised line of his scalp. The caress was slow, a smooth sweep of fingers lovingly gliding back and forth. Blaine let his eyes fall shut.

“You were coming for Rocky,” Frank realised aloud, his free hand pressing over Blaine’s bare chest, resting on his heart. “You were coming to fight.”

Blaine tipped his head just slightly in confirmation.

In a rush Frank rose to his knees, cradling Blaine’s head softly and pressing his lips into his hair, over the scar underneath.

Blaine shivered under the touch, and as Frank held him he felt the weight inside melt into relief. He breathed deep, caught in the blissful smell of corset leather, faded cologne and sweat across Frank’s chest.

“I need you to know,” Blaine said suddenly, voice cracking. He swept his hands up Frank’s sides, clinging to his waist. “I meant what I said. I meant every word.”

Frank rested his chin in Blaine’s hair, arm curled around his neck and fingers trailing over the sensitive skin behind his ear. “What you said?”

“I love you.”

He felt Frank’s breath draw in, the fingers behind his ear still soothing over his hair and down his jaw.

After a long pause, swaying in the silence and still holding on to each other, Frank pulled away and settled back onto his thighs. Huge blue eyes sought out Blaine’s, bright and unafraid. “I don’t want to be Frank anymore,” he whispered. “Not with you.”

Blaine felt his heart pound heavy in his chest.

“Okay,” he breathed.

Frank smiled softly, lifting Blaine’s hand and pressing a kiss to his knuckles. 

“I want to go back to your house.”


	13. Chapter 13

When they stepped through Blaine’s front door, it was like a weight had fallen from both of them. The rush of relief was steadying, sweet and calm like blue sky breaking out from the storm.

As Blaine gathered their bags together and dropped them by the door, Frank smiled softly at the familiarity of the room, and the utter _Blaine_ of it all. His eyes lingered over perfectly ordered bookshelves and cabinets, and boxes stacked nearly behind the couch.

Blaine pressed a gentle hand to the small of Frank’s back, fingers grazing across the lines of the corset and slipping lower to brush tenderly over skin.

“I know I’ve only been here once, but I think I’m going to miss this place, when you move,” Frank said.

With a nod, Blaine surveyed the room as Frank turned tightly against him. “Me too.”

Frank sucked in a harsh breath, gaze lowering to the line of Blaine’s mouth. “I should…” His voice trailed off, like he’d forgotten what to say. He shook his head just slightly, letting out a shaky laugh. “I should get out of this costume.”

“Mmm,” Blaine agreed with a playful smile. “When you’re ready.”

Meeting his eyes, Frank held them for a moment and pressed his lips together in a thin line. He nodded gently. “I’m ready.”

Blaine leaned in without a word; pressing a sweet, quick kiss to his lips before he sank down to his knees so slowly Frank could hear every thunderous tick of the clock on the wall. He tried to control his breathing, staring down at the man in front of him, lost for words as he watched Blaine’s eyes trail down his body.

His breath caught in his throat as Blaine’s hands dragged up both calves over the leather of his boots, and then focused on one leg, gripping the zipper and dragging it down to his ankle. He did the same on the other, taking his time, and guiding both of Frank’s legs out carefully with firm hands before he pushed the shoes away.

Slow, steady fingers undid the clasps of both garters, slipping into stockings and peeling them down one leg, then the next. With his eyes closed, Frank swayed in the aching silence that coiled around them both.

His hands slid into Blaine’s hair while he planted a soft, chaste kiss to the side of Frank’s knee, palms gliding up the backs of both thighs. It felt raw, and heady, and Blaine's heart clenched tightly in his chest at how badly he needed him to know, to feel, to understand. Every press of lips to skin was soft and simple, unadorned by sex or lust, only saying _you are loved_.

Blaine whimpered when Frank slipped out of his grasp, and just barely stopped himself from reaching after him. He watched as Frank moved on long feet and pale, muscular legs, gliding to the door to gather his bag.

When Frank spoke, his voice was breathy and uncontrolled, almost scared. “I have to – I have to go and wash this out, wash this off,” he waved a nervous hand at his hair and face. “I’m going to have a shower. And get dressed.”

Blaine gave a quick nod, pulling himself up from the ground without looking away.

“I’ll be right back, and then… we can be…” Frank flinched tightly at the tremor in his voice, and tried to steady his breathing.

“Hey.” Blaine’s tone was gentle, and he met Frank’s eyes when they fluttered open. “You don’t have to.”

“I want to.” Frank said, and while his voice betrayed him, his gaze was clear and sure. “Please, let me.”

Blaine nodded. “I’ll be here.”

Giving him a final, grateful smile, Frank slipped through Blaine’s bedroom to the ensuite, and Blaine watched him until the door slid closed.

Blaine scooped to pick up his bag, swinging it into his bedroom and pulling his phone from his pocket, trying to ignore the frantic pounding of his nervous heart. He moved through muscle memory as went about his usual post-show routine, changing quickly into comfortable pants and a t-shirt, and tossing his cell down onto his second pillow as always.

One step away, he froze, and turned back to the bed. A tentative smile played at his lips as he reached out, and took back the phone, discarding it on a side table. He ran his fingers gently over the swell of the pillow itself, soothing out the worn indent of his cell phone.

He drew a smooth and deliberate breath, eyes bright and wandering over his bedroom.

This was real.

Frank, _his_ Frank, was here, and he was real, and warm, and Blaine knew in that moment that everything would be alright.

He padded quietly out to the kitchen, tugging on the refrigerator door and glancing down at the scattered contents. With a sweep of his hand over the shelves, he pulled out a bottle of water and let the door thump closed.

The shower shut off with a groan in the pipes, and Blaine glanced up, trying to ignore the sharp thrill that shot up his spine.

 _Just breathe,_ he told himself, closing his eyes and leaning back against the bench as he sipped his bottle of water. He flexed his toes carefully against the tiles, sore as always from the part of every Friday night that he'd spent in high heels.

Focusing on his breathing and trying to calm the swell in his chest, he didn’t hear the bathroom door. It wasn’t till he caught a quiet cuss that his eyes flew open, and he leaned on one leg to try and peer into his room. “Everything okay?”

“You don’t own a hairdryer,” Frank called back accusingly.

Blaine couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face. He shifted on the balls of his feet, teetering to catch any hint of him flickering past the doorway. There was a streak of navy blue, a shirt and shoulders, and Blaine felt his pulse thundering in his ears with excitement. When Frank swept past again, too far away, he caught a mess of light-brown hair, damp and sticking up haphazardly.

His grin only widened at the awareness of _light brown_. He knew the gel was tinted dark, but he’d had no idea what was underneath.

Frank moved past the door a third time, and Blaine stepped out of the kitchen, wandering slowly towards his room. Something in the back of his mind flared darkly in warning. _Wait,_ it said. _Stop. Shirt and shoulders. Wait._

“Are you coming out here?” Blaine called, chuckling and trying to ignore the strange and unsettling feeling building in his gut.

“Urgh, I look like someone drowned a muppet, hang on,” Frank called back.

Blaine let his head roll forward, body shaking with silent laughter as he heard the familiar zip of Frank’s bag. He put his bottle down on the counter, and turned to go help when the warning came again, flashing sparks of startling memory.

_Shirt and shoulders. Light brown hair. Wait. Stop._

He slowed to a halt half way across the living room, blinking.

_Even the back of him was beautiful._

And Blaine would know. He’d seen it often enough.

“Okay, you’ll have to put up with the mess.” Frank sighed in resignation. “Just, don’t say anything about the hair, it’s usually a lot better. No, that’s underplaying it,” he called in cocky, playful tones. “It’s usually perfect.”

“Perfect,” Blaine whispered in a hollow voice.

_Oh god._

His heart was on the floor before Kurt stepped through the doorway.

Blaine didn’t move as all the air drained violently out of the room in a silent second. 

The clock on the wall ticked like a thundering metronome, and Blaine knew he’d stopped breathing. He could feel the scream of his lungs, begging for oxygen.

_Kurt._

Kurt slid forward gracefully, hands pushed into his pockets and shoulders drawn up high. “So,” he said lightly, a nervous smile playing at his mouth.

Blaine felt the world sputter in a kaleidoscope of cold awareness, hollowing out his veins.

Something inside him flared and exploded in waves of shock and absolute, unparalleled disbelief.

“Blaine?” Kurt cocked his head.

Blaine swallowed air, blinking numbly, paralysed to the spot. He tried in stunted sparks of will to untangle the twisted ropes of _Kurt_ and _Frank_ and _how_ in his head.

_Kurt. Frank._

He was talking again, but Blaine couldn’t hear him.

_How._

“Blaine, you’re scaring me,” Kurt whispered.

Blaine felt his mouth finally snap shut. 

The words bubbled up too fast. “I think I’m having a stroke.”

“Smile,” Kurt instructed instantly.

“What?”

“Smile, so I can see if it’s uneven, it’s a sign of-”

“No, I –” His voice didn’t sound like his own. “I’m – I’m not actually having a stroke, I just… _oh god_.”

Kurt’s gaze narrowed. He paused for a second, and flinched with irritation. 

“I know this is news to you,” he said lightly, barely disguising the hurt in his voice. “But it’s fairly universal that a stroke and 'oh god' are not flattering reactions to seeing somebody for the first time.”

Blaine tried to pull in a hard lungful of air, heart pounding painfully in his chest. “Kurt, no, I – please–”

Kurt’s eyes flashed wide in shock. “You- you know my name?”

“I-” _Yes. Kurt. Oh god._

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Kurt, please,” Blaine begged helplessly.

“You _knew_?” Kurt growled accusingly. “Wh- what is this?”

“It’s not, I mean, you’re-” _You’re him. Kurt. Please._

“Not what you expected,” Kurt finished for him icily, shoulders falling.

Blaine felt the sound tunnel back down his throat, sticking in his ribcage and screaming for release.

“I get it,” Kurt uttered brokenly. “It’s… fine. I guess I’m not what you wanted after all.”

Blaine shook his head feverishly, blinking and choking as he tried to form the right words, tried to move, tried to stop time and start over.

“He – you’re,” he barely managed to get out. “From my work, the guy, he’s-” _You,_ his brain supplied. _He’s you._ The words didn’t make it to his lips.

“It’s about _him_?” Kurt asked, his mouth hanging open. A flash of anguish danced across his features under the shock, raw and clear, tearing Blaine’s heart from his body.

Kurt scooped up his bag, his frame hunched in rejection as he swept towards the door. “This was a bad idea.”

“No, Kurt – please-” Blaine’s voice was cracking violently, struggling to break out of him and growing desperately louder. “I didn’t know!”

Kurt reached for the handle as Blaine’s cry shattered the room.

_“I didn’t know you were the same person!”_

Time stopped.

Kurt’s fingers lingered in the air, frozen. 

The silence felt like a living, breathing animal between them, sweeping through the open space and keeping them pinned painfully still.

Blaine’s barely-there dry sob was all it took for Kurt pull his hand back slowly, and the fear, the sheer undiluted terror of turning around and facing him felt like fighting a war. 

But he turned anyway.

“It was me,” Kurt said softly, eyes trained on the floor for a moment. “He… was me?” He glanced up, searching Blaine with wide and confused eyes.

Blaine gave a frantic nod, mouth trembling, shoulders hunched and hands groping uselessly at the air on the other side of the room.

“H-how?” he asked. “Why – why didn’t you say anything? You didn’t recognise me?”

Blaine shook his head just as violently.

Kurt stared at him, body clenched tight and bracing as he tried to understand what was happening to them both. 

“I don’t believe you,” he whispered. “You worked in that office for months, you never so much as looked at me. This – this doesn’t _happen_.”

“I d- I did. _Please_ ,” Blaine begged again. “Please don’t leave. I can explain.”

Wetting his lips, Kurt glanced around nervously, lost and unsure of what to do with his hands. 

“Alright,” he lowered his bag to the floor, “explain.”

Blaine blinked at him, stunned. “Oh. I… I can…” He searched the room without really seeing, trying to think of something, anything, to prove himself.

“Oh!” he said suddenly, spinning and scrambling to his bedroom.

Stunned, Kurt leaned to peer through the doorway after him. With a shaky exhale and one last glance to the front door, he followed.

When he reached the bedroom, Blaine was standing at the dresser, holding his pocket watch in his hands.

He turned, seeking and finding Kurt’s silhouette instantly, eyes huge and sad, and stunning in the soft light. 

“Come here?” Blaine pleaded gently, sliding onto the bed to sit down.

Tentatively, Kurt did as he asked, and with two steps was at the bedside.

“It was months ago,” Blaine whispered, looking at the disc and chain in his hands. “You were… We were in the elevator.”

Kurt gasped quietly, settling on his knees on the bed. “I remember,” he breathed, gaze falling to the watch. “You were wearing the grey suit,” he laughed a little in surprise, “and that … horrible green tie. I wanted to cut that thing off and burn it.”

Blaine looked up, surprised but smiling. “You saw me.”

“Of course I saw you.” Kurt answered sadly. “But you didn’t even look at me. I mean; I was staring, I couldn’t help it. But you-”

“I was scared,” Blaine confessed, breathless. “You were… I was staring, too. At your hands. You had this,” he flipped open the watch, pulling out the folded note inside, “on a piece of paper. I couldn’t stop thinking about it for days, I had to write it down.”

Kurt unfolded the scrap of paper carefully. His jaw fell as he read it. “ _Oh_.”

“It was the reason. _You_ were the reason I took that flier from the café. I used to go there,” he ducked his head timidly, “every Monday, when you got your coffee. I used to go just so I could remember, just… so I could see you. Even if it had to be from a distance.”

Kurt’s eyes were closed as he listened, still clutching the piece of paper in his hand. 

“I put the flier on the board, at the café,” he admitted, opening his eyes to meet Blaine’s. “For the show. We needed a new Brad, of course, but I never imagined…”

Blaine laughed to keep himself from crying. It was ridiculous. It was insane, it was impossible, but all of it was happening. Kurt was here. 

Kurt was right in front of him, looking at him with eyes he’d seen so many times before, talking to him with a voice he knew so well he heard it in his sleep. His Frank. His Kurt. He was _here_.

Blaine stared at him openly, unable to look away, trying to find the seam where Frank ended and Kurt began. But there was none. It made absolutely perfect sense, but no sense at all.

His eyes trailed over the familiar lines of Kurt’s face, and his mind reeled again at that simple fact. _Familiar_. But they were. The same angles he’d pressed kisses to so many times, had brushed with his fingers, had loved. The sweep of his nose, the curve of his mouth, all laid bare and more beautiful than Blaine had ever imagined.

“The first time I saw you,” Blaine began carefully. “It was across the lobby. I felt like…”

“I know,” Kurt whispered back.

Blaine looked up.

“I saw you too.”

Blaine’s gaped at him, eyes huge and dark, brow drawn in breathless surprise.

“My dad said this to me,” Kurt went on, tapping the piece of paper. He shifted as he spoke to settle down properly and cross his legs on the bedspread. “The day I realised I didn’t want to go into musical theatre. It was all I ever wanted, and then one day, it just… wasn’t anymore. I was so lost,” he said with a soft sigh, dragging his thumb over the words. “So I called my dad, like I always do when I don’t have any answers.”

Blaine listened as he studied Kurt’s face adoringly, mapping every new line and uncovered expression to memory.

“He asked me what I really wanted to do. The first thing that came to mind was what I loved most. Fashion. Then he said this to me." He raised the piece of paper. “Sometimes we forget who we really are, and we need to be reminded.”

They shared a knowing glance, and Blaine felt his body relax, soothed under the familiar wave of Kurt’s voice as he continued his story.

“Then, he said that the first thing on my mind was probably the right thing. So I went for an interview.” Kurt shrugged. “I mean, it was a fashion magazine, and it felt _so right_ , but it was still new. Like nothing I’d ever done before. I was scared, and I was so close to not walking past those front doors, but then I saw you.”

His eyes lifted, meeting Blaine’s gaze again.

“You knew who I was, all this time,” Blaine said finally, wetting his lips. “You never said anything.”

“Neither did you,” Kurt countered.

Blaine laughed brokenly. “That’s fair,” he said. “But I couldn’t – when you were around, when you were there and I had a chance to say something, I could never get it out. You left me speechless.”

Kurt swayed gently, expression drawn in shock and wonder. He shook his head in exasperation. “We’re both _idiots_.”

“Mmm,” Blaine agreed, nodding.

A long pause stretched between them as it all sank in, and the silence lingered on comfortably, wrapping them both in the stillness of the early morning.

Suddenly, Kurt laughed, closing his eyes.

“What?”

“The night you had the fever,” he said, fighting a disbelieving grin. “And you were talking about him.”

Blaine’s face flushed red and he buried it in both hands. “Oh god.”

Kurt watched him with an amused glint in his eye, biting his lip as he leaned back. “You couldn’t have said ‘Kurt’? It’s one syllable, how hard is that?”

“Hey, I had a fever,” Blaine insisted with a bashful grin.

“I was so… heartbroken,” Kurt continued, his voice higher. “You were talking about him, and I was holding you, but I couldn’t let you go.”

“I was talking about you,” Blaine corrected him.

“I didn’t know that.”

“You do now,” Blaine offered gently.

The corners of Kurt’s mouth crept into a smile.

After a moment, he sank slowly down onto the bed in exhaustion. Somehow just that simple act let Blaine's entire body finally uncoil, relief pooling in his chest and slowing the race of his heart.

Kurt looked up at him, blue eyes unclouded and fixed with something new. 

They shared a mutual smile for a long moment in the quiet, both settling in the aftershocks of their revelation.

“God,” Kurt said, shaking his head against the pillow, eyes low like he was talking to himself. “It just seems so ridiculous.”

“It is,” Blaine agreed, scooting up the mattress and laying out alongside him, twisting so they faced each other on their sides. “But it doesn’t change anything. At least, not for me.”

Kurt shifted, settling his cheek on the cool fabric and staring into Blaine’s eyes.

Blaine stared back, content right down to the bones of him to simply be still and breathe together, just like they’d always done.

The moments slipped into minutes and more, and Blaine had no idea how long they’d simply lay there together, watching. 

“This feels like…” Kurt stopped, searching the wall for a moment before he looked back.

Blaine let his head roll on the pillow, quirking the corner of his mouth in a smile. He knew, and Kurt did too, that they’d done this so many times already. Listening to each other’s voices, long into the night, heartbeats in time to the rise and fall of someone else’s breath.

“Blaine,” Kurt said, eyes drifting open and closed very slowly.

“Mm?”

“Don’t fall asleep,” he said.

“I won’t.”

Barely breathing, Kurt was completely still on the other side of the bed. His gaze trailed over Blaine’s face slowly, mouth slack and trying to form words.

“I need to tell you,” he whispered. “I have to.”

“What?”

Kurt’s lips ghosted over the words before he said them aloud.

“I think,” he breathed. “I think I’ve always loved you.”

For the first time since he’d seen his face, Blaine reached out and touched him.

They pulled together slowly, hands sliding over fabric and skin in long, languid strokes. Kurt was solid, and soft, and warm against his chest, fitting all around him like they’d always been that way.

Blaine’s palms grazed over the sides of Kurt’s face, capturing him and tipping his head back gently against the pillow as he kissed him deeply and slow. He drew Kurt’s lower lip into his mouth gently, sucking and sweeping his tongue over it as Kurt whimpered against him, and long fingers brushed lovingly over his shoulder blades.

Without warning, Blaine’s kiss turned frantic, needy and desperate in sweeps of tongue and the press of his fingers over Kurt’s jaw.

Kurt pulled away with a slip of sound, his voice breathy and worried. “Hey, hey, what is it?”

Blaine thumbed over Kurt's cheek, but didn’t open his eyes. “Tell me,” he pleaded quietly, his voice thick. “Tell me this is real, and I’ll believe you.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Kurt cried softly, pressing quick, soft kisses to Blaine's lips over and over in succession. “I promise. I promise it is.”

Blaine let a trembling breath fall away from him. “Thank you,” he whispered.

Kurt squeezed him tightly, settling down against Blaine’s body and planting another gentle kiss at the base of his throat.

Blaine’s hands dropped, skimming over Kurt’s arms to trail up and down his back along his spine.

He felt the heavy drag of sleep creeping into his mind like a fog, and blinked himself awake.

“Kurt?”

There was no answer, only the faint flush of heat and soft breathing.

“You’re falling asleep,” Blaine teased.

“Mrrph,” Kurt mumbled against his shoulder in denial.

“Even when you don’t say anything,” Blaine said, kissing his temple and settling against the pillow -

“I love the sound of your voice.”


	14. Chapter 14

Blaine’s eyes opened lazily, sleep-drugged and lagging as consciousness crept up on him again. The sweet, easy breaths pulling into his lungs were mindless and calming, like the weightlessness of a long fall that never hit the ground.

He blinked sleep away, coming back to himself, and began to move sluggishly before he felt his heart thrill in his chest.

_Kurt._

Keeping perfectly still, he wet his lips as his gaze fell across the sleeping man beside him. Kurt was sprawled on his back, hair mussed, head resting gently in the dented curve of the pillow that was always meant for him.

Blaine stared, eyes raking over everything in front of him. He traced the line of Kurt’s profile, the perfect slope of his nose dipping down to curved lips, just slightly parted, pink and soft in the late morning sunlight. Blaine heard his own breath fall with a faint huff as he watched, awestruck and unwilling to look away.

The stillness of Kurt’s face, left open and exposed by the peace of sleep, made Blaine’s stomach flip. He’d believed for a long time that Kurt Hummel was the only person he wanted to wake up to – but no fantasy could have prepared him for what he was looking at, what he could see.

He wondered to himself how someone so beautiful could be real.

The make-up, the sheen of gloss and painted brows and red lipstick, was nothing compared to what lay underneath. The pale shades of his skin, the long soft lines of his eyelashes against his cheeks, all of it had been obscured for too long.

Blaine lifted his hand very slowly, reaching out to trace the pad of his finger across Kurt’s lips, catching the ghost of his breath over skin. Kurt didn’t stir, still afloat in whatever lingering dream he was lost to, chest rising and falling like the wash of a tide.

An adoring smile curved at Blaine’s lips, and he grazed his fingers down the line of Kurt’s throat, dancing lightly over the collar of his shirt to rest on his chest. Blaine could feel the soft thumping of his heart in his palm, and his mouth twitched with disbelief once again. _His_ Kurt.

He let his eyes slip lower, over the cut of Kurt’s hips under his shirt, the peek of his boxer-briefs below it. The old familiar lines of Kurt’s thighs stretched out beyond that, naked and pale against his bedspread.

Blaine swallowed thickly, dragging his gaze up and down Kurt’s body to catch every angle and curve of him under the beams of light streaming in the window. He sank down on the bed, glancing quickly to see if Kurt was awake before he brushed his palm along the lean lines of muscle in his legs. He swept up them gently, flipping his hand over, dusting his fingers and knuckles along the skin and watching it prickle into goosebumps. 

Still smiling sleepily, he slid down the bed to settle by Kurt’s hips, picking up the fabric of his shirt to expose the smooth, tight curve of his belly. Captivated, Blaine thumbed across the skin above the line of Kurt’s briefs, gasping gently at just how soft and warm it felt under his touch. With a tremble in his lips he pressed his mouth to it carefully, reverent and almost breathless.

He moved up Kurt’s frame with drawn out near-chaste kisses, taking his time and remembering the sensation, the scent and the warmth of him. His arms lifted to brace Kurt’s hips, fingers pressed along the sides of him and guiding his shirt up as he worshipped Kurt’s body with his mouth.

Kurt stirred with a deep sigh, a high and blissful sound slipping through on the breath as it rolled out of his body. Blaine smiled against skin, pressing one last kiss above his navel before he looked up with half-lidded eyes.

“Good morning.”

Even barely conscious, Kurt’s smile could only be interpreted as _dirty_. “Apparently.”

Blaine blinked at him, bemused for a moment before he felt Kurt’s calf slide further between his legs, illustrating with an exquisite twinge of friction the hard length that pushed at the front of his pants. 

“ _Oh_ ,” Blaine ducked his head, flushing to the tips of his ears. He’d been too caught up in the taste of Kurt, the feel of him, to realise he was already hard.

Kurt’s long, thin fingers brushed through his curls, tangling in them and stroking along the scar on his scalp. With a contented sigh, Blaine settled, blush fading as he rested his cheek on Kurt’s abdomen and nuzzled gently.

Another sweet, happy noise came from above him, and Kurt’s fingers kept stroking along his skin, down behind his ear and back again. “What time is it?”

Blaine didn’t open his eyes. “Late,” he mumbled. “But it’s Saturday.”

“Mmm,” Kurt agreed, and Blaine could hear the smile on his voice.

After a long pause, Blaine lifted his head, catching the bright and sleepy blue eyes staring down at him. With a faint, muffled grunt of effort, he dragged himself up, settling over Kurt to capture his mouth.

Kurt kissed him back lazily, but briefly, as Blaine pulled away in confusion at the taste of mint.

Blinking up at him, Kurt tilted his head on the pillow before he realised. 

“Oh! I woke up a few hours ago,” he explained, eyes dropping to Blaine’s lips absently as he walked fleeting fingers up his ribcage. “Sleeping in jeans is not comfortable.”

With a huff of laughter, Blaine dipped his head against Kurt’s neck.

“I should brush my teeth,” he grumbled, shooting Kurt a quick look of apology.

"Mmm." Kurt glanced to the door. “Be quick.”

Blaine rolled off him with a groan, feet finding the floor before he padded over to the bathroom and slipped inside. Completing his morning needs took barely five minutes, but five minutes too long all the same. When he came back through the door, adjusting his problematic hard-on awkwardly through his sweat pants, he stopped still at the sight that met him.

Kurt had barely moved from where he lay spread out on the bed. His shirt was still rucked up to his breastbone, and the pale span of skin below it rippled with each breath. Both arms were cast beside him, bent at the elbow, resting palm-up against the pillows by his head. One leg was raised, curved at the knee, foot flat to the mattress with the soft skin of his inner thigh bared in Blaine’s direction. His eyes were sweeping lazily over the patterns of shadow on the ceiling, mess of untamed hair spiking in shocks of light brown against the grey of the bedding.

Blaine’s breath caught in his throat at the sheer openness of the beautiful, debauched and bed-warmed body spread before him.

As he rolled his head on the pillow, a smile crept over Kurt's lips while he watched Blaine linger in the doorway.

“Come here,” he whispered.

Blaine did as he was asked, dropping onto the mattress on hands and knees and crawling up Kurt’s body, licking and nipping gently along exposed skin as he went. Kurt jerked underneath him, laughing lightly as Blaine trailed over both calves to his knees. 

Kurt’s high, breathy sounds of delight were cut off by a whimper of need as Blaine reached his briefs and nuzzled at the crease of his thigh.

He hooked the line of Kurt’s boxer briefs with both hands and stripped them down, past his knees and off completely as Kurt lifted his legs to accommodate the motion. When his legs fell back to the mattress Blaine settled between them, rough pads of his fingers sinking into muscle and holding him down.

“ _Oh_.” Kurt’s head pressed back hard into the pillow, mouth falling open and eyes fluttering closed as Blaine licked at the soft skin inside his thighs. 

His body twitched under Blaine’s grip, hands still cast by his head and flexing uselessly as Blaine mouthed at him in long, teasing drags of tongue. Blaine lingered there, too far away, moving over Kurt’s thighs and everywhere else that _wasn’t close enough_ before Kurt let out a desperate, pleading sound.

With a wicked curve of his mouth, Blaine pressed his face tight between Kurt’s legs and lapped at the crease of him.

Kurt moaned, hips canting up helplessly as Blaine licked down over his entrance, grazing across puckered skin and swirling around the tight ring of muscle. 

“ _Blaine!_ ”

Blaine’s groan was muffled, but the vibration shot straight to Kurt’s cock, hard and leaking against his stomach as Blaine worked him over, his perfect wet tongue twisting down burning flesh and finally sinking inside.

With a choked sound, Kurt gulped for air, his entire spine thrumming with pleasure and the intensity of the sensations rocketing through every nerve. He gasped as his hips rose off the mattress suddenly; Blaine had pushed both arms under his thighs, lifting him up and all but wrapping Kurt's legs around his head as he pressed in deeper, burying his face between his cheeks and moaning into his body as he thrust his tongue inside again and again.

Kurt’s cries cracked on the air before they made it out of his mouth, his head thrashing against the pillow. “ _Fuck_. Blaine! I need- _please_ -”

The angle of him shifted; dropping down as Blaine scooted back quickly, mouth slipping away with a wet, slick sound. As Kurt’s ass settled against the bedspread he felt warm, rough fingers coil around the base of him, squeezing and sending throbs of ecstasy through his entire body.

Blaine sank his mouth down over the thick, pulsing heat of Kurt’s cock, pressing his tongue flat under the head and massaging slowly as Kurt writhed above him. 

Lips stretched tight and glistening wetly, Blaine let out broken, needy sounds around the cock in his mouth as it slipped under his soft palate and pressed perfectly to the back of his throat. He felt his own neglected cock twitch almost painfully in his pants, but ignored it, revelling in the weight on his tongue and the taste of Kurt flooding his senses.

Kurt’s whimpers and pleas echoed over his bedroom in warning, bookended with his name. He felt a flash of heat surging up his spine at the sound, and sank down deeply. His eyes watered at the stretch in his throat before he swallowed around him, and Kurt’s entire body arched violently up off the bed with a broken cry.

Blaine pulled back slowly; sucking and swallowing down everything Kurt gave him before he slipped off with an obscene, wet slurp. Gathering air deep in his lungs, he glanced up, mouth falling open at the sight of Kurt laying sweat streaked and panting on his bed.

Kurt’s eyes were glassy, flashing as his eyelids dipped and rose again, never fully closing. Sharp breaths swelled his chest, and the pale skin of his stomach flashed in the afternoon light.

With a hand stroking soothingly over Kurt’s leg, Blaine settled back down, dropping his head to rest on Kurt’s other thigh like a pillow.

“Ohhh,” Kurt finally found his voice again, high-pitched and shaky. “I forgot where I was, for a minute.”

Blaine smirked. “I’m taking that as a compliment.”

“Mmm, you should,” Kurt murmured, closing his eyes as his fingers twitched in the air by his head. “Oh god, that was…”

Blaine dipped to press a light kiss to the soft skin beneath him. He paused for a moment before he moved up further, soothing his tongue over the crease of Kurt’s thigh and licking gently at the head of his softening cock. 

“Nggh.” Kurt jerked limply underneath him.

With a satisfied smile, Blaine nuzzled against his stomach briefly, taking his time as he ambled up the bed over Kurt’s spent frame to settle on his knees alongside him. He lifted both hands from the bed, gathering the crumpled edges of Kurt’s half-off half-on shirt and raising his brow in amusement when Kurt didn’t move. 

Whining pitifully, Kurt struggled up onto his elbows, shifting so Blaine could rid him of his last piece of clothing.

Blaine cast the shirt aside and sat back to stare down at him again. Kurt hadn’t moved from where he fell back, spread out in front of him, sated and loose.

With drooping eyes, Kurt tugged at the hem of Blaine’s shirt weakly before shooting him a half-lidded glare of protest.

Grinning, Blaine peeled of his shirt, throwing it over the edge of the bed with Kurt’s. He looked back to catch any sign of approval, but Kurt’s eyes, and then his fingers, were lingering over the band of Blaine’s pants.

Blaine rolled his eyes playfully as he rocked on his knees, dragging down his pants and briefs. He hissed quietly as they caught on the jut of his cock, flushed and slick and bobbing against his stomach. 

Finally naked and shivering in the cool air, he pushed back up the bed, moving to lie down when he felt Kurt’s hands halt him with a grip on both thighs. 

He swallowed roughly, eyes dark and low as he inched forward under the guidance of Kurt’s fingers until he was straddling his chest.

Kurt’s gaze was hungry and fixed on Blaine as he took him in, from the flex of the muscles in his thighs to the soft, dusky pink of his nipples. 

Blaine shivered lightly under Kurt’s stare, but didn’t look away as Kurt slowly studied every inch of him, sweeping over the expanse olive skin and dark hair. His mouth slipped open, pink tongue darting out to wet his lips when he finally let his gaze fall on Blaine’s straining cock, arcing up towards his belly.

With a sharp gasp, Blaine jolted under the sudden sweep of Kurt’s fingers, smoothing up the length of his cock and pressing along a thick vein. He stuttered around a breath as they wrapped around him and slid down, spreading slick moisture and gliding over heated skin. His hips clenched tight against the desperate need to push forward, to fuck into Kurt’s perfect fist as he pumped him slowly, swirling over the head on every upstroke.

Blaine whimpered, hanging his head helplessly while Kurt touched him, owned him, and kept him utterly captive with one hand. He didn’t see the way Kurt watched him, the way Kurt was breathing brokenly through his mouth, utterly captivated by the look on Blaine’s face.

He felt Kurt shift beneath him, and opened his eyes just in time to see wet, pink lips glide over the head of his cock. He let out a long, keening sound at the vicious curl of pleasure that flared in his spine while Kurt’s hand kept stroking up and down, lips fixed firmly as he swirled his tongue and sucked hard, hot and wet and tight all around him.

When Blaine came he threw his hands out, bracing himself against the headboard as Kurt stroked him evenly through it and drank down every drop, huge eyes staring up at Blaine to watch him fall apart.

Shuddering with pleasure, Blaine tried to hear past the whistle of soundlessness in his ears, eyes unfocused on the wall before he shifted back and toppled onto his side.

Kurt licked his lips, and drew the bottom one into is mouth to bite on it. He smiled as his eyes drifted closed and a tiny, pleased sound escaped him.

Blaine’s breathing was still loud, punching out in huffs as he began to come down from the high.

“You look amazing when you do that,” Kurt told him softly.

“Wh- ” Blaine rolled his head helplessly to the side, staring at the line of Kurt’s profile. “When I do what?”

Kurt didn’t turn, but opened one eye just slightly to peer sideways at him, still smiling.

“Oh.” Blaine laughed softly, “I don’t know about _that_.”

“You have no idea,” Kurt breathed, searching the ceiling in wonder. “Trust me.”

Scrunching his nose, Blaine pressed his face into the pillow. His arms were wrapped around himself awkwardly, and even though it was uncomfortable he couldn’t bring himself to care.

“So. I’m glad it wasn’t just about the corset,” Kurt joked lightly.

“God, no,” Blaine insisted. “Don’t get me wrong, it looks … incredible on you. It all does. But it was never about that.”

Kurt’s lips twitched. “Looks pretty good on you too. But I prefer you like this.”

Blaine looked up at him, curious.

“You have no idea how beautiful you are, do you?”

He shook his head, laughing dismissively.

This time Kurt did turn to him, head lolling to the side. His voice was soft but insistent, “You take my breath away.”

Blaine stared back, blinking in surprise.

“It’s not just this,” Kurt went on, “it’s everything. Your passion, how you don’t have any idea how strong you are. The way you touch me, the sound of your voice. Your stupid ties,” they both laughed, “everything.”

Blaine lifted himself up, perching on an elbow. “How did I find you?”

Kurt arched an eyebrow at him. “With great difficulty.”

Eyes falling shut, Blaine laughed at the momentary lapse.

In a quiet moment between words, they stared at each other again, comfortable in the press of silence and content to simply breathe and drink each other in.

It was a long time before Blaine shuffled closer, pressing his body along Kurt’s side and sliding a hand across his skin. The need in his chest rose up like a fever, and he dipped down to kiss sweetly at his lips once, and again, and a third time as he licked into Kurt’s mouth. 

They rolled together, arms tangling around each other as they rocked and pressed into the mattress. Blaine’s fingers came up to graze over Kurt’s jaw, cupping his face in both hands as he sucked on his tongue, whimpering and sliding against him bodily, dragging Kurt on top.

He felt the swell of Kurt against his thigh, growing hard again, and his hips jerked at the awareness that Kurt was on top of him, wrapped around him, in his mouth and in his hands, and everything he ever wanted.

“Mmmf,” Kurt hummed brokenly as he broke away. “Do you have any-”

“Top drawer,” Blaine cut him off, capturing his mouth again as Kurt’s hand groped for the bedside table.

He found the handle, dragging the draw open and scrambling blindly inside. They pulled apart again just long enough for Kurt to find a condom and the small bottle of lube, dropping them onto the bed and rolling back on top of Blaine eagerly.

Blaine’s hands came to rest on his face, cradling him as he spoke. “Do you - want me-” Blaine tried to speak, pressing sharp, desperate kisses to his mouth between words, “Do you want me to?”

Kurt nodded, misunderstanding. “Please,” he begged.

“I need to turn over-” Blaine whispered as he tried to shift, but Kurt’s hands stopped him, pushing him back down.

“What is it?”

“No, that’s not what I – I… need _you_ ,” Kurt whispered seriously, bowing to press their foreheads together. “Please.”

Blaine’s eyes widened. “Oh.”

“I mean… I can… if you want?” Kurt offered, eyes searching. “But, I,” he breathed against Blaine’s lips. “I want you inside of me.”

Blaine drew a shaky breath, nodding back, heart thundering in his chest. 

He groaned at the incredible ripple of friction as they both pulled themselves up, hips clashing together, cocks sliding against each other between sweat damp skin as they settled against the headboard. 

With shaking hands, Blaine grappled for the lube, slicking up his fingers quickly as Kurt settled in his lap. He could feel the heat pouring off of both of them in waves, and Kurt pressed tightly against him, so close Blaine couldn’t tell whose heart was beating louder.

Kurt slipped both hands across his face, pulling him in and claiming his mouth again, swallowing down Blaine’s muffled sound of surprise. 

As he pulled away, Blaine felt the flutter of Kurt’s eyelashes on his cheeks, the gust of breath over his swollen and abused lips as Kurt's hips slid back in his lap and sent electricity firing up his spine.

He wrapped an arm around Kurt’s waist, holding him tight as wet fingers grazed over the back of a thigh, slipping down the center of him to spread him open. Kurt gasped and let his head drop forward onto Blaine’s shoulder, breath punching out in fast gasps as Blaine’s fingers circled his entrance, gliding over hot skin in rough strokes until he slipped inside. 

Kurt’s entire body jerked, shoulders tensing in a flash before he settled into the motion of Blaine’s hands, the finger slipping in and out of him slowly, searching and stretching and teasing at the ring of muscle.

“More,” Kurt pleaded, rocking in his lap. “Please.”

Blaine brushed his lips over Kurt’s neck in light kisses, biting gently into the muscle of Kurt's shoulder as he worked another finger inside slowly. With shaky breaths, Kurt began to push back against his hand, ass lifting up in tiny jolts of desperate movement. 

Blaine tried not to moan at the tight, hot clench around his fingers as he finally added a third, and Kurt keened loudly into his ear, fucking back onto his hand.

Trembling, Blaine dropped his head, pressing his crown to Kurt’s chest and letting his eyes fall to the curve of Kurt’s cock, wet and straining in front of him. He bit back a whimper at how badly he wanted to wrap his mouth around it again, breathing too fast, unsteady and aching as his hips rutted helplessly against Kurt’s thighs.

When Blaine slid his fingers out, Kurt muffled his cry against skin while he waited for the rip of the condom packet. Ignoring the tremor in his thighs, he raised himself up onto his knees over Blaine’s lap as Blaine’s hand moved beneath him, slipping the condom on and slicking his cock in sharp, needy jerks.

Kurt braced both arms over Blaine’s shoulders as strong, damp hands found his hips, guiding him gently. The drag of Blaine’s cock against his entrance made his entire body throb, and he sank down, eyes rolling up at the stretch and slide as Blaine pressed deeper and deeper inside him. 

“Oh,” Blaine moaned. “Kurt. _Fuck_.”

Soothing hands swept over Blaine’s chest as their hips met, and Kurt was still for a long, aching moment. Blaine’s hands dropped down, sliding over the swell of his ass and cupping it in both palms, holding on and kneading into muscle. With a shuddering breath, Kurt began to rock gently.

"Hnnh." Blaine’s head fell back against the headboard, body drawing tight with the rush of white-hot pleasure that rippled under his skin. 

Rolling his hips, Kurt lifted himself, lost in the torturous, wet slide of Blaine’s cock pulling out of him halfway. He slammed back down again and let out a sharp cry, skin on fire and body coiling tight at the incredible wave of ecstasy that came with being so perfectly and completely full.

His body surged with the rhythm, riding Blaine into the mattress, fingers pressed into the sweat-slick muscle of Blaine’s stomach as his body bowed and he shook with every echo of skin on skin.

When Blaine’s hips bucked up, rough and slamming into him, Kurt shouted and fell forward, legs spreading wider helplessly as he was held up only by Blaine’s grip on his waist. His hands slammed against the headboard as Blaine pounded into that perfect place inside of him, making him cry out in desperate, shattered, barely human sounds. 

The grip on his waist tightened, and he barely caught the sharp flare of warning in his spine before he cried out one last time and came hard across Blaine’s chest in long, thick stripes.

Slowing his hips, Blaine kept a hold of Kurt’s waist to stop him from falling. He slid in and out of him slowly, eyes closed and lips dry and open as their bodies rocked together. 

“Kurt,” Blaine whimpered, hands slipping up and down his sides, begging. 

Kurt sank down on top of him, burying Blaine deep and keeping him there. Blaine moaned as Kurt leaned back in his grip, sliding his hand over the swell of his ass to find where Blaine disappeared inside of him, warm and pulsing and exquisitely slick. His eyelashes fluttered, eyes closing as he tightened every muscle, drawing his hips forward in tiny pumping shocks. 

“ _Ungh!_ ” Blaine’s shoulders stuttered against the frame as his hips slammed up into Kurt, lifting them both off the mattress while his eyes rolled back in his head and his orgasm tore through him.

Their bodies surged together, jolting the headboard against the wall in uneven beats as they settled and slowed to stillness, the silence only punctuated by rough gasps for air.

With fingers splayed across Kurt’s back, Blaine dragged his lips over collarbones weakly, sealing his mouth over the slip of his tongue against skin. Kurt sighed with a light noise of bliss above him, raking fingers through curls absently as he felt the muscles in his thighs flutter and twitch. He was content to never move again, settled in Blaine’s lap, stretched and full and satisfied to his very core.

“Why did we wait so long?” Kurt asked breathily.

“I wanted this,” Blaine answered, murmuring against his neck. “This way. With you; all of you. I wanted you to know.”

Kurt smiled, pressing his mouth into Blaine’s hair against his own fingers. “Know what?”

Blaine’s hands tickled down Kurt’s back, moving to an old familiar pattern, dragging lovingly up and down his spine.

“That it was never about being Frank. Or the secret, or being backstage,” he said, body swelling with breath to the same rhythm as the one against his chest. “I wanted to wait for this. I wanted _you_.”

Kurt closed his eyes, sore and stained but unwilling to move from the circle of Blaine’s arms and the warmth of his body.

“You have me.”


	15. Epilogue

Blaine had forgotten what it felt like to live for Monday mornings.

The café was four blocks in the wrong direction now, too far from work and the theatre, just an absent and unconscious thought that slipped away and settled somewhere in the back of his mind. The _before_.

Kurt had vanished briefly on Sunday afternoon to pack a bag and come back to Blaine’s place, to Blaine’s bed, back to revelling in each other for as long as they could. When he woke up that Monday, Blaine got dressed, and then lay back and watched.

Kurt’s routine was efficient and flawless, ending with him sliding into tight designer jeans and a soft gunmetal cardigan that swooped down low in deliberately uneven lines on one shoulder, revealing the pale stormy grey of his shirt underneath and just enough skin to make Blaine’s fingers tingle pleasantly with memory. His hair swept up perfectly, shades of caramel and honeyed brown, styled and soft and never out of place.

He was wearing his glasses, the first time Blaine had seen them up close, the same charcoal as his Marc Jacobs boots.

Blaine’s eyes were huge, and openly staring, lost in this new Kurt after two days spent spreading him out and learning every curve of him by hand and tongue and heart.

“What is it?” Kurt asked, amused and glancing up over his frames.

“You,” was Blaine’s stunned reply as he closed the gap between them. “I keep thinking I’ve gotten used to this, and then...”

Kurt smiled as he turned, sliding both arms slowly over Blaine’s shoulders. “By this you mean me?”

“Mmm.” Blaine’s fingers grazed over the soft cotton at Kurt’s waist, warm and pliant under his hands. He squeezed. “You were the best daydream I ever had,” he said. “The best thing about every Monday morning. But if somebody told me then that I would … _ever_ get to touch you-”

He was cut off by the slide of Kurt’s lips over his, glasses bumping his cheek. Kurt rolled against his body, pressing their chests together. 

Sighing blissfully as he pulled away, Kurt took Blaine’s hand and lead him to the door. “Come on.”

Blaine grabbed his bag on the way, startled. “Wh- Where are we going?”

“We,” Kurt said, glancing back at him, “are going to get my Monday coffee.”

Blaine grinned.

The trip to the café was so much faster than Blaine remembered, and all too surreal with Kurt’s leg thrown over his lap as they pressed into each other on the cramped bus trip.

Walking into the café itself was strange enough, but the squeal of delight that met them when they got inside left them both still with surprise.

“I knew it!” The girl who was squealing waved a cloth at them, and Blaine recognised her after a moment as the waitress from the week before.

“Oh, hi,” Blaine sputtered. He leaned quickly over to Kurt to explain.

“I don’t know if this is because of me,” she pointed at their joined hands, fingers interlaced between them and bumping against thighs, “but if it is, all I ask is that when you tell your beautiful, romantic how-we-first-met French café story to your grandkids one day; make me sound pretty,” she waved a hand through the air, “mysterious and wise.”

“Deal,” Blaine laughed softly as Kurt buried his blushing face in his shoulder.

She winked at them when she sauntered away, almost skipping.

They sat at Blaine’s usual table at Kurt’s insistence, and Blaine did his best not to feel uneasy at the thought of showing him.

“Wow, I see what you mean,” Kurt cocked his head as he spoke, eyes trailing across the room. “I would look _hot_ from this angle.”

Blaine snorted, embarrassed and trying to hide his face. “This is … mortifying.”

“I think it’s adorable,” Kurt countered.

Blaine fixed him with a poor attempt at a glare. “I think _you’re_ adorable.”

“Mmm,” Kurt hummed his agreement, earning more breathy laughter from Blaine.

“You made my week, every week,” Blaine told him. “It was something worth waking up for.”

One side of Kurt’s mouth curled into a smile. “Even from a distance?”

“Even from a distance,” Blaine insisted, sipping his medium drip. “Even with you always facing the other way.”

“The second chair is uneven, it rocks, it’s annoying as hell,” Kurt explained.

Blaine grinned. “Even with your … very loud friend who comes with you sometimes.”

“Rachel,” Kurt rolled his eyes. “She’s an acquired taste.”

“I thought she was your girlfriend, for awhile,” Blaine confessed. “Before I saw you with that-” his voice cut off, eyes growing wide.

Kurt swallowed a mouthful of coffee, blinking. “What?”

Blaine’s eyes flicked back and forth. _Kurt has a boyfriend_. He remembered the panic that had seized him at the sight, weeks ago.

“There was this guy,” he began hesitantly. “I saw you hugging him at the office, and then he was here with you. I ... thought you had a boyfriend.”

Kurt’s eyes narrowed, and he shook his head.

“He was really tall. Kind of broad shouldered, and he looked really… happy…” Blaine’s voice began to taper off when he looked over at Kurt, “to see you…”

Kurt was trembling – minutely, but building up to a full tremor – lips pressed tightly together and eyes pinched. Blaine couldn’t help the confusion that spread across his face, and the twinge of relief and surprise that replaced it when he realised that Kurt was _laughing_.

No, Kurt wasn’t laughing, he was almost crying from _trying to hold the laughter in_.

Something in Blaine’s head clicked.

“Oh god, it was Finn, wasn’t it?”

The sound burst out of Kurt on a high, musical round of notes, spiralling down as he wiped away tears behind his glasses. “ _Ohhhhh_ my god,” he wailed quietly. “Ohh, oh, my stomach hurts.”

He watched as Kurt came down from his fit of giggles, unable to stop his own broad grin or the blush on his face.

“I’m an idiot,” he said with a resigned sigh, pressing fingers into the bridge of his nose.

“I thought we’d already established that,” Kurt teased. He sipped his drink again, watching Blaine over the top of his cup.

When Blaine glanced up, he felt his heart skip at the look Kurt was giving him. He shivered, shifting suddenly in his seat as the breath made it back to his lungs. 

“So,” he said, trying to ignore the heat crawling up his spine at Kurt’s lingering stare. “No boyfriend. That’s… That’s a relief.”

“I didn’t say that,” Kurt countered as he put down his cup.

“Oh,” Blaine blinked at him, hand flexing involuntarily on the tabletop. “Right, I mean – I didn’t mean to insinuate-”

“ _Blaine_ ,” Kurt cut him off.

Blaine met his eyes again, his expression naked and vulnerable, just as Kurt’s hand slid across the table and into his own. A thumb swept over Blaine’s wrist softly, and he gasped.

Kurt’s smile was warm, his eyes still bright and teasing.

“ _Oh._ ” Blaine’s mouth fell open.

With another sip of his coffee, Kurt swayed slightly in his seat.

Blaine felt the tight squeeze in his chest release, replaced with a warm and soothing rush. It had only been three months, but it felt like so much longer, and the simplicity of sitting in a coffee shop with Kurt, _his_ Kurt ( _boyfriend_ , his brain reminded him), was almost too much like coming home.

He felt it turn over in his mind like a coin. _Boyfriend._

The word settled in his chest, tucked neatly between his hope and his heart.

Monday morning coffee became a part of life again, like it had always been, but so different and so much better in every possible way. Weeks trickled by like pieces of a daydream spun together, and by the time he had a week left in his apartment, Blaine was frantic, panicking at every rejected application for schools and rentals alike.

The Friday he opened the last reply letter, he’d tripped over boxes scurrying for the door and through it and – _shit, fuck, shit_ – running back up the stairs again thirty seconds later when he realised he’d forgotten his costume bag.

He raced through the lobby of the theatre when he arrived, pounding down the corridors and rushing back stage, searching anywhere for Kurt amidst the early cast arrivals. 

Kurt was already half in costume, fishnets and boots below satin and lace, his bare chest exposed as he leaned back against the table and fiddled with the strings of the corset in his hands.

Blaine raced up to him, stumbling and nearly falling over, letter still clutched tightly and flapping against his fist.

“What happened?” Kurt straightened the moment he saw him, dumping his corset on the table before he braced both of Blaine’s shoulders to catch him. “Are you okay? Breathe!”

Blaine waved the letter weakly, trying to find air. “I d- I did it!”

Kurt’s eyes were huge, his head shaking side to side, asking for clarification.

“I got in!” Blaine cried, grinning from ear to ear. “The arts program at Hinwood, musical theatre – I got in!”

Kurt’s face opened into a giant grin and he laughed excitedly, wrapping himself around his boyfriend as they both rocked on their feet. “Oh my god, Blaine!”

Blaine buried his face in Kurt’s bare shoulder, clinging tight to his waist and grinning against skin to keep himself grounded. His pulse was racing; beat tearing through his blood with adrenaline and excitement and pure, undiluted joy.

“Oh, my god,” Kurt breathed as they settled down, still holding on. He let his eyes drift closed, resting their heads together. “I’m so proud of you.”

At that, Blaine pulled back gently, fixing him with an adoring look. Kurt’s heart clenched at the tears building in Blaine’s eyes. “You’re amazing, Blaine,” he said genuinely. “And you deserve to hear that. As often as possible.”

Blaine dragged in a long breath, pushing it out again as tried to reign in the near-painful thumping in his chest. “Thank you,” he said wetly.

“Don’t thank me,” Kurt insisted, leaning back and scooping up the corset again. “This was all you.”

With a shake of his head, Blaine settled against the table beside him. “No, you were the reason I even – it was you, you gave me the strength to talk to my dad.”

Kurt’s brow knitted together in sympathy. “Have you told him?”

Blaine sighed, eyes dropping. “We haven’t spoken,” he admitted. “I talked to my mom, she’s … good. But it’s going to take a long time.”

He felt Kurt’s hand slip into his own and squeeze gently.

Smiling, Blaine rested his head against the swell of Kurt’s shoulder, gaze lingering over the leather in Kurt's hands. 

“You want some help with that?” he offered, voice sultry and playful.

Kurt’s mouth twitched into a soft curve, and he pulled away without a reply, handing the corset to Blaine. As he slid up onto the table, Blaine shifted and spread his legs, letting Kurt step in between them so he could wrap the leather and silk around his body.

After he pulled each cross-lace tight, Blaine ghosted a kiss between them, leaving tiny wet patterns over the triangle patterns and the map of the strings. Kurt rocked on his feet with every tug, eyes closed, enjoying the sensation and trying not to moan as Blaine’s fingers and mouth brushed over sensitive skin.

“Get a room,” Madge teased as she wandered past, and they pretended not to hear her, betrayed by their smiles. 

“Speaking of which,” Kurt murmured, shivering under Blaine’s careful hands. “We have to detour on the way home tonight, we need more… supplies.”

“Again?”

Kurt smirked.

At the sound of Blaine’s melancholy sigh, Kurt’s eyes opened. “What is it?”

Blaine shrugged, fingers still tangling between corset laces. “It’s just,” he shook his head. “It’s not going to be _home_ for much longer.”

“Oh.” Kurt’s hands lowered to sweep his fingers through Blaine’s hair comfortingly.

“I’m going to miss it,” Blaine admitted. “I mean, it reminds me of my old life, sure. But so much happened there. All those phone calls into the morning,” he let a wistful smile creep across his features, “the fever night, that first time you were there. And the first time we…”

Kurt quirked an eyebrow at him, “To be fair, all of that happened in your _bed_ ,” he tipped his shoulder to illustrate his point, “not your apartment.”

Blaine heaved another sigh, finishing up and tying off the laces with a flourish before he settled his hands on Kurt’s hips. “True,” he looked up, “I think I’ll miss it more than anything else.”

“Why would you get rid of it?” Kurt asked, surprised.

“It’s too big,” Blaine explained. “Wouldn’t fit in the dive apartment my part-time office job can afford.”

Kurt paused, eyes wandering high as he thought. Stepping in closer, he coiled both arms around Blaine’s neck, and wet his lips. “Then it’s a good thing,” he said lightly, “that I have a very large bedroom.”

Blaine started at him, blinking and stunned.

Dropping his gaze to the line of Blaine’s lips, Kurt brushed his own over them sweetly, grazing skin over skin, kissless and sensual. Blaine’s breath, dancing across his wet mouth, sent shivers up his spine.

“You… you’re asking if–”

“Yes,” Kurt said, amusement and excitement shining in his eyes. “It's not exactly a palace, but there's room. If you want to.”

Blaine answered with a kiss, a loud breath pulling fiercely into his lungs as he seized Kurt and crushed their bodies together desperately, hands sliding over leather and lace.

When Kurt pulled away he swayed in Blaine’s arms, eyes half-lidded and smiling. “I’m taking that as a yes.”

“Yes,” Blaine breathed, gripping at his waist as he kept pressing kisses to Kurt's lips.

Kurt hummed into his mouth after a moment, brushing their noses together briefly before he pulled away. “I have to go put Frank on,” he said reluctantly, slipping back and grabbing the make-up case from the end of the table.

Blaine tried not to let a whimper escape him as he watched Kurt saunter away, eyes trained on the flex of muscles against garters and the curve of his ass in satin.

Groaning quietly, he dragged himself from the table, picking up his bag and finding an empty corner to get changed into his first Brad costume for the night.

“Can anybody tell me,” Trix’s voice came thundering across the room, “why we haven’t replaced this fucking thing yet?”

Snickering, Blaine pulled on his jacket, moving to help her with the ridiculously skimpy Rocky costume she was trying to adjust. It was just a gold dress, but it certainly left little to the imagination.

She hugged him tight once he’d lined up the hooks and zipped her up. “Thanks, kiddo.”

“No luck with a new Rocky?”

“Oh,” she sighed bodily, slumping, “not even close. It’s always a bitch to recruit, though. You need to find the kind of person who’s looking for something, someone who really gets it.” She bumped him with her hip. “We lucked out, with you.”

He smiled at that. Suddenly he realised that his chest hurt at even the fleeting concept of what his life would have been if he hadn’t taken that flier.

“Why do _you_ do it?” Blaine asked, suddenly curious.

She narrowed her eyes at him.

“I mean,” he waved his hand, “I love it, here. It’s – I can’t imagine _not_ doing it. But the appeal for me is the performance and the singing.”

“And Frankie,” she added knowingly.

Blaine laughed. “That too.”

She slipped an arm around his waist and pulled him to her side. “Can I tell you a secret, sugar?”

He nodded.

“This place,” she twirled a finger in the air, “is the greatest place on earth. This place is the future, in the middle of now. Because here, we can be anything we want; dancers and singers, and sluts and whores, cross-dressers, transvestites, prudes and princesses, freaks and _fucking proud of it_. We can be leather, and glitter, and sex. And not one single bastard out there in that audience will stop and judge us-”

Blaine listened carefully, eyes shining in the backstage light.

“-Because every single one of them is the same,” she told him. “So why do I do it? Because here,” she tapped the ground with her foot, “we can be anything we want, without fear. We can even be ourselves.”

He nodded sharply at her, not quite able to find the words he wanted. She rubbed his back gently before she wandered off to keep setting up. 

He wished he could have told her, but he was too overwhelmed to say aloud just how much he understood.

_Sometimes we forget who we really are._

Kurt - _Frank_ \- slinked over to him silently, slipping both arms around his waist and pressing a soft kiss to his neck. The smell of the hair gel and powdered makeup washed over him, old and familiar, cut with the heady undercurrent of the _Kurt_ underneath.

Blaine sighed, rocking back against him. He breathed deep, turning to press a long, sensual kiss to Kurt’s mouth. He licked against teeth and tongue, sucking back gently on his lower lip, remembering the first time, the rush of blood to his head and the taste of sugar cherry.

Kurt let out a shuddering breath, eyes still closed, as he pulled away. “What was that for?”

“Luck,” Blaine whispered with a soft smirk. “And lipstick stains.”

His laugh was sweet, and almost silent in reply as he draped himself over Blaine’s shoulders. 

They waited together for the music, lingering in the shadows under the sweep of red side-stage curtains, where they’d found each other.

_Here, we can be anything we want._

_We can even be ourselves._

_We can be us._

(FIN)


End file.
